YinQiSanHuang Jiedu decoction for the treatment of hepatitis B-related compensated liver cirrhosis: study protocol for a multicentre randomised controlled trial.

Abstract

Introduction: Hepatitis B-related compensated liver cirrhosis is related to higher risk of hepatocellular carcinoma, anti-viral therapy is the preferred method. As the pathological mechanisms of liver fibrosis are complex, drugs developed for a single target are difficult to be effective in clinical practice, so there are no chemical drugs or biological drugs with clear efficacy available for clinical application at present. Traditional Chinese medicine is a kind of medical science that has been gradually formed during thousands of years and continuously enriched by the people of all ethnic groups in China. Traditional chinese medicine shows curative effects in the treatment of liver diseases, especially in the field of liver fibrosis prevention and treatment. This study aim to test the integrative medicine (chinese medicine plus anti-riral therapy) effective on lowing hepatocellular carcinoma risk among patients with hepatitis B-related compensated liver cirrhosis.Methods and Analysis: This is a multicentre randomised controlled trial, total 5 hospitals and 802 patients will involved in. All the subjects are randomly allocated to the YinQiSanHuang Jiedu decoction(YQSHD) group (n=401) or the placebo group (n=401). The YQSHD group receives YQSHD granule with Entecavir(ETV), the placebo group receives YQSHD placebo with ETV. Treatment period will last for 52 weeks, and follow-up period for 52±2 weeks. The primary outcome measure is the annual incidence of HCC. Outcomes will be assessed at baseline and after treatment. Objective of this trial is “the integrative of YQSHD with ETV reduce the annual incidence of HCC to 1%”.Ethics and dissemination:The protocol has been approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of Guang’anmen Hospital, China (No.2019-006-KY), and the other centres in the trial will not begin recruiting until local ethical approval has been obtained.Trial final results will be disseminated via publication. Trial registration: ChiCTR1900021532, this protocol was registered in the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (URL: http://www.chictr.org.cn/searchproj.aspx) on February 26th, 2019.