Subtraction Wu Mei Wan Treatment Of Steroid-dependent Asthma Clinical Research

Glucocorticoid inhalation has been used as principal medicine with positive therapeutic efficacy and a little adverse effect . However , there are many patients who have to depend on oral steroids to control condition and the condition will become worse with the oral steroid being stopped to take . The sort of asthma is named as steroid-dependent asthma (SDA)which is belong to difficult asthma . At present , anti-immune preparations are mostly used for alternative of SDA , the therapeutic efficacy of which are not positive . On the other hand , these medicine are difficult to be accepted because of adverse effect . Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)put emphasis on holism and balance of yin and yang . The herbs are superior to modern medicine owing to better treatment effect on SDA and almost without any side effect . However , the herbs treatment of SDA is just at the beginning of phase . The most of data such as single case investigation are short of systematic clinic trials and method of random and control . Objective: To observe the clinical effect of Wumeiwan in the treatment of SDA . Methods : 60 patients with SDA were randomized to enter the treatment group (Wumeiwan +Pulmicort Turbuhaler 200μg , Bid)and the control group (Pulmicort Turbuhaler 400μg , Bid)with the therapy lasting for 12 week . Results : The treatment group was significantly superior to the control group in terms of the steroidwithdrawal (p<0.01). At the same time,it was also significantly superior to the control group in the aspect of the occurrencing frequency of symptoms of asthma during nighttime, the inhaling frequency of Salbutamol Aerosol , counts of main symptoms and signs, coordination of cytokine, regulation of cAMP and cGMP, hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA)axis functions and improvement of asthma quality of life. But there was no significant difference in the aspect of the lung functions (p>0.05). Conclusions: The study have shown that Wumeiwan could decrease the patients' oral dose of steroid , alleviate the clinical symptoms , improve their lung functions and HPA axis functions , improve the asthma quality of life ,and not only regulate cytokine but also cAMP and cGMP. As a result , Wumeiwan could provide an effective alternative of oral steroids without any side effect .