Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine and Corticosteroids in Asthma: A short review.

Abstract

Asthma is a prevalent chronic inflammatory disease that has gold standard treatment with corticosteroids, but these are associated with important long-term side effects. On this basis, Traditional Chinese Medicine contributes with therapeutic techniques such as the herbal Anti-Asthma Herbal Medicine Intervention (ASHMI). In this context, this study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment with ASHMI compared to conventional therapy, considering the need for new therapeutic approaches. An integrative review was performed, according to the PRISMA methodology. Articles published between 2011 and 2021 that related Herbal Medicines of Traditional Chinese Medicine, asthma and corticosteroids were examined. The searches took place in October and November 2021 in the Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and Scielo databases. The selection comprised steps such as: search, pre-selection and inclusion of articles. The results of the herbal medicine and its isolated components were demonstrated, with three studies being clinical trials with humans and four pre-clinical studies. From the results, the efficacy of the herbal medicine and its components compared to corticosteroids were evaluated. It was reported that ASHMI, unlike corticosteroids, does not suppress the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the immune system, having mild adverse effects