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. 2020 Sep 14;14(6):752–759. doi: 10.1007/s11684-020-0813-6

Chinese herbal medicine reduces mortality in patients with severe and critical Coronavirus disease 2019: a retrospective cohort study

Guohua Chen 1,#, Wen Su 1,#, Jiayao Yang 1,#, Dan Luo 1,#, Ping Xia 1, Wen Jia 1, Xiuyang Li 2, Chuan Wang 1, Suping Lang 3, Qingbin Meng 1, Ying Zhang 4, Yuhe Ke 1, An Fan 3, Shuo Yang 1, Yujiao Zheng 2, Xuepeng Fan 1, Jie Qiao 5, Fengmei Lian 2,✉, Li Wei 1,✉, Xiaolin Tong 2,✉
PMCID: PMC7488644  PMID: 32926320

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) in patients with severe/critical coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In this retrospective study, data were collected from 662 patients with severe/critical COVID-19 who were admitted to a designated hospital to treat patients with severe COVID-19 in Wuhan before March 20, 2020. All patients were divided into an exposed group (CHM users) and a control group (non-users). After propensity score matching in a 1:1 ratio, 156 CHM users were matched by propensity score to 156 non-users. No significant differences in seven baseline clinical variables were found between the two groups of patients. All-cause mortality was reported in 13 CHM users who died and 36 non-users who died. After multivariate adjustment, the mortality risk of CHM users was reduced by 82.2% (odds ratio 0.178, 95% CI 0.076–0.418; P < 0.001) compared with the non-users. Secondly, age (odds ratio 1.053, 95% CI 1.023–1.084; P < 0.001) and the proportion of severe/critical patients (odds ratio 0.063, 95% CI 0.028–0.143; P < 0.001) were the risk factors of mortality. These results show that the use of CHM may reduce the mortality of patients with severe/critical COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19, CHM, mortality, a retrospective cohort study

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Special Project for Emergency of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No. 2020YFC0845000) and Special Project for Emergency of the National Administration of Tradition Chinese Medicine of China (No. 2020ZYLCYJ03-11). The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Guohua Chen, Wen Su, Jiayao Yang, Dan Luo, Ping Xia, Wen Jia, Xiuyang Li, Chuan Wang, Suping Lang, Qingbin Meng, Ying Zhang, Yuhe Ke, An Fan, Shuo Yang, Yujiao Zheng, Xuepeng Fan, Jie Qiao, Fengmei Lian, Li Wei, and Xiaolin Tong declare that they have no conflict of interest. This study was approved by the institutional ethics board of Wuhan Integrated TCM and Western Medicine Hospital (No. [2020]8) and was registered with chictr.org. cn (ChiCTR2000030719), and all procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards.

Footnotes

These authors contributed equally to this work.

Contributor Information

Fengmei Lian, Email: lfm565@sohu.com.

Li Wei, Email: y077088@sina.com.

Xiaolin Tong, Email: tongxiaolin@vip.163.com.

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