Clinical study on the treatment of infant cytomegalovirus (CMV) hepatitis intervened by traditional Chinese medicine

To evaluate the efficacy and safety of Chinese medicine (CM) in treating infantile cytomegalovirus hepatitis (ICH), a total of 43 infant ICH patients were randomly divided into two groups, 22 in the treatment group and 21 in the control group. The treatment group: patients were treated with Qinggan Lidan decoction (QLD) during icteric stage and Yigan Jiangmei decoction (YJD) in non-icteric hyper-aminotransferase stage by oral medication. At the same time, ganciclovir was administered to the patients via intravenous dripping in dose of 5 mg/kg every 12 h for two weeks, followed by 5 mg/kg once a day for five days every week; the whole treatment course lasted 4 weeks. The control group: apart from the Ganciclovir (same to the treatment group), they took glucurolactone of 50 mg three times per day. The efficacy of treatment was evaluated at the ends of 2nd and 4th weeks, respectively. The total effective rate was 95.45% in the treatment group and 71.43% in the control group after 2 weeks treatment; the total effective rate was 95.45% in the treatment group and 66.67% in the control group after 4 weeks treatment, so the overall curative effect in the former was superior to that in the later, showing significant difference (P=0.021, P<0.05). In case of the rate of cytomegalovirus (CMV)-DNA negative-inverted, the treatment group was 85.71% at the 4th week, and the control group was 86.67% (P=0.941, P>0.05). There are no distinct differences in the rate of CMV-DNA negative-inverted for both groups, however, in the aspects of relieving cholestasis and reviving the liver function, the treatment group was better than the control group, this was further proven by professor PEI Xue-yi's, the well-known CM doctor, experienced in clinical treatment of ICH, focused on jaundice in the earlier stage and on the increase of hepatic enzyme in the convalescence. There are two stages of the treatment: smoothing cholecyst to degrade jaundice and reinforcing liver to drop enzyme. At the stage of icterus, patients may take orally QLD; when the jaundice fades away, but the transaminase is still high, the patients may take YJD. This traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) therapy works better than the pure western conventional medicine, and clinical results show that this scheme improves the prognosis of ICH; so, this therapy is a good therapy approach for the patients of ICH.