The Use Of Danshen In Traditional Chinese Medicine

Traditional Chinese Medicine China is rich in medicinal resources with more than 5,000 medicinal herbs. Currently, 1,146 Chinese herbal raw materials and Chinese herbal patent medicines have been documented in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia.

Danshen

Background

Danshen, is the dried root or Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge, a perennial herb plant that was used in traditional Chinese medicine for over years ago. Other names of danshen are Chinese sage or red sage. Danshen are available in three preparation which are the Compound Danshen Injection, Compound Danshen Tablet and Compound Danshen Dripping Pil. The injection form is used to treat coronary and pulmonary heart diseases, hypertension and diabetes. The tablet form is for treatment of coronary heart disease and angina. Modified tablet form resulted in dripping pills, which has better therapeutic effect for angina due to its water solubility.

Claim Danshen follows classic teachings of traditional Chinese medicine that mentioned “when blockage is opened, pain is relief; when blockaged is not open, pain persists. ” This is the same to “open artery hypothesis” in management of cardiovascular diseases today. Danshen shows therapeutic effect in treating cardiovascular diseases, stroke and diabetes.

Scientific Evidence-based

Angina Pectoris Angina pectoris is one of the coronary heart diseases. Ischemic heart disease is the myocardial impairment due to an imbalance coronary blood flow caused by changes in the coronary circulation. It is diagnosed by clinical examinations of symptoms and ECG. Danshen improves microcirculation, causes coronary vasodilation and inhibits platelet aggregation thus it is widely used for patients with angina due to coronary artery diseases. A lot of randomized controlled trials has been done and meta-analysis was carried out. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) between 1994 and 2009 on Danshen dripping pills (DSP) versus isosorbide dinitrate (ISDN) in treating angina pectoris were retrieved from major databases, including PubMed, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, and WanFang Data. The RCTs were screened and filtered and 60 were selected. 6931 participants aged between 35 and 88 associated with angina pectoris were treated with DSP for at least four weeks. 59 studies used a dosage of 10 pills (27mg/pill), three times daily while one study used 8-10 pills. All 60 studies showed symptoms changes whereas 53 studies showed ECG changes as therapeutic indicators.

Then, the meta-analysis of the eligible 60 RCTs shows a consistent result that DSP is more effective than isosorbide dinitrate (ISDN) in treating angina pectoris at overall odds ratios around 2 with statistical significance(P<0. 00001). Stroke Ischemic stroke occurs due to formation of blood clots in the brain blood vessels thus causing blockage of blood supply to the brain. Danshen improved blood circulation to absorb the blood clots. In a clinical trial, 20ml Danshen injection in 40ml 25% glucose is given intravenously to 120 patients associated with ischemic stroke and 96. 6% of the patients shows clinical improvement after 4-6 weeks.

Immunomodulatory effects to Nasopharyngeal carcinoma Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a prevalent tumor in Hong Kong. Patients associated with this disease has an immune system that is adversely affected during chemotherapy or radiotheraphy. Yunzhi-Danshen capsules are found to exerted immunomodulatory effects in NPC patients. In the Prince of Wales Hospital, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 27 patients with histologically proven NPC were given 3. 6g Yunzhi and 1. 4g Danshen in the form of 12 combination capsules (TCM group) or placebo daily for 16 weeks, respectively. Decreases in absolute count of T suppressor cells, cytotoxic T lymphocytes, and T helper cells in the TCM group were significantly lower than those in the placebo group (both p < 0. 05).