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Follow‐up of adult patients with atopic eczema treated with Chinese herbal therapy for 1 year
Author(s) -
SHEEHAN M. P.,
STEVENS H.,
OSTLERE L. S.,
ATHERTON D. J.,
BROSTOFF J.,
RUSTIN M. H. A.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
clinical and experimental dermatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.587
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1365-2230
pISSN - 0307-6938
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2230.1995.tb02717.x
Subject(s) - medicine , placebo , erythema , placebo group , clinical trial , surgery , atopic dermatitis , dermatology , alternative medicine , pathology
Adult patients with severe atopic eczema who had completed a double‐blind placebo‐controlled crossover trial of a specific formulation of Chinese herbal therapy were offered continued therapy for 1 year. Of 31 patients who completed the original placebo‐controlled study and after a washout period and 2 months of further treatment, 17 continued treatment (group 1), 11 chose not to continue treatment (group 2), one was lost to follow‐up and two patients originally in group 1 decided to stop treatment and became pregnant. At the end of the year, 12 of the patients in group 1 had greater than 90% reduction and the remaining five had greater than 60% reduction in clinical scores compared with baseline values. Clinical scores of patients in group 2 gradually deteriorated so that by the end of the year the difference between groups 1 and 2 was highly significant ( P =0·005 and P =0·002 for erythema and surface damage, respectively).