Chinese herbal medicines in the treatment of ulcerative colitis: a review

OBJECTIVE: To investigate how the ulcerative colitis (UC) be treated with Chinese herbal medicines (CHM), using Chinese medicine (CM) pattern (zheng) identification, in the current clinical practice. METHODS: A total of 7 electronic databases were systematically searched for UC clinical studies with CHM interventions (including single herbs and CHM formulas) published in English and Chinese from the date of their inception to November 25, 2020. Descriptive statistics were adopted to demonstrate the characteristics of study design, and to collate the commonly CM patterns of UC and frequently used CHM herbs and formulas. Further, IBM SPSS Modeler 18.0 and Cytoscape 3.7.1 software were used to analyze and visualize the associations between different categories of CHM and their zheng indications. RESULTS: A total of 2311 articles were included in this study, of which most (> 90%) were RCTs with CHM formulas. The most common zheng of UC was Large intestine dampness-heat, while the basic type of CM patten was Spleen deficiency. The most frequently used classical formula was Bai-Tou-Weng-Tang, followed by Shen-Ling-Bai-Zhu-San, and the commonly used proprietary CHM was Xi-Lei-San (enema). Sulfasalazine and Mesalazine are commonly used as concomitant western medicines. The most frequently used single medicinals were Huang Lian and Bai Zhu, which also identified as the core herbs for different CM patterns. CONCLUSION: This study examined the application of CHM interventions for UC and summarized their characteristics in clinical practice. These data indicated there were limited information about the safety assessment of CHM formulas and further RCTs including CM pattern(s) with strict design are necessary. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13020-022-00591-x.