The mechanism involved in treatment of "Hepatophilic virus disease" with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has not been completely elucidated, but the result of clinical observation of its application gives evidence that it is related to the following facts:
(1) Traditional Chinese medicine drugs are able to soothe the liver, relieve depression, eliminate heat and promote biliary function; it can also significantly suppress, neutralize, dilute, excrete and disintegrate virus or the viral antigen -antibody complex. Administration of TCM can selectively excrete the long time stagnant virus duplicate (including whole virus granules and large amount of virus capsules), immune complex (antigen-antibody complex) and the produced inflammatory fluid. The “wetness-heat” accumulated for years, ten more years or several decades in the body can then be rapidly excreted. This is an effective way of eliminating virus and the remaining inflammatory exudates is also carried away, leading to improvement of the body fluid milieu, improvement of inflammatory edema of liver cells and clinical regression of hepatomegaly and splenomegaly.
(2) TCM drugs can improve visceral microcirculation, prevent or slow down the process of liver cell deterioration and promote liver cell regeneration. It can also activate the normal function of tissue cells of other organs and therefore can relieve the clinical symptoms of other systems caused by chronic hepatitis, attaining the standard of clinical cure.
(3) TCM drugs cause rapid excretion of metabolic waste products formed by various dysfunctional systems, such as excess uric acid and cholesterol and interrupt the development of extra-hepatic disease caused by these metabolic products.
(4) TCM treatment can significantly increase immunologic capacity of the body and decrease virus replication. Through the TCM special function of “stabilizing the foundation to build up the native strength”, various active factors of the body interact in harmony. Therefore, body strength is increased and disease process can be stopped.
(5) During treatment of hepatophilic virus disease with TCM, under the principle of “treating the fundamental”, the physician should select the appropriate drugs in reference to the patient’s clinical symptoms to make up a formula to “treat according to symptoms”. Because it is under the principle of “simultaneous treatment of the cause and symptoms”, symptoms of different forms of chronic virus hepatitis may disappear rapidly and clinical cure is attained.
In order to elucidate the actual effectiveness of TCM in treating hepatophilic virus disease, we summarized the clinical data of 2000 cases of abnormal liver dullness in Hong Kong. In recent 5 years, the clinical cure rate and the time of recovery of liver dullness were used as criteria for observation and we found that TCM treatment for hepatophilic virus disease was definitely effective. It is worthwhile to introduce this treatment widely.
Prolonged clinical observation shows: the abnormal liver dullness of hepatophilic virus hepatitis patients in general will not disappear spontaneously. But after taking TCM three or more parcels, oftentimes, one may find that hepatomegaly disappears and the margin of liver dullness returns to 1.5 cm above the costal margin. However, clinical recovery of the liver size is only the first step in successful treatment of hepatitis, but this is enough to demonstrate the correctness of clinical diagnosis. The second step, which is extremely necessary, is 4-6 weeks of TCM treatment and this is the way to eradicate the remaining “wetness-heat” of the internal organs.
Criteria of clinical cure in this group: “ disappearance of hepatomegaly, liver dullness returning to normal level of 1.5 cm above costal margin, clinical symptoms markedly relieved or disappeared, part of the patients may have some symptoms attributable to post-liver disease such as weakness of kidney, weakness of blood, etc. The patient should continue to take drugs and persist in food therapy to promote recovery”. This is different from criteria of cure in hepatitis in western medicine.
Days for recovery of abnormal liver margin in patients with hepatophilic virus disease after administration of TCM often directly indicate the TCM formula quick in action or not. Figure 2 shows the change of the curves and TCM effectiveness after 3, 6, 9 and 14 days of treatment. The 1998-year curve indicates after taking 3 parcels of TCM, 43% of patients show normal recovery of liver and 99% of patients had a normal liver margin after 2 weeks of therapy.
By WONG Kwok Hung
26th September 2000
(Translated by Professor ZHENG Hua En)
