Chinese Herbal Medicine Therapy Reduces the Risks of Overall and Anemia-Related Mortalities in Patients With Aplastic Anemia: A Nationwide Retrospective Study in Taiwan

Aplastic Anemia (AA) is a rare but fatal hematologic disease that may occur at any age and especially higher in Asia. We investigated whether Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is beneficial to AA patients as a complementary therapy using a nationwide population-based database in Taiwan between 2000-2016. Patient survival was estimated by Kaplan-Meier survival analyses and Cox proportional-hazard model. CHM-users presented lower risks of overall and anemia-related mortalities when compared to non-users. The risk of overall mortality for CHM-users in AA patients was 0.70-fold [adjusted hazard ratio (aHR): 0.70, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.66-0.74, p < 0.001). The risk of anemia-related mortality was lower in CHM-users when compared to non-users (aHR: 0.46, 95% CI: 0.32-0.67, p < 0.001). The association rule analysis revealed that CHM pairs were Ban-Zhi-Lian (BZL; Scutellaria barbata D. Don)-> Bai-Hua-She-She-Cao (BHSSC; Oldenlandia diffusa (Willd.) Roxb.), followed by Dang-Gui (DG; Angelica sinensis (Oliv.) Diels)-> Huang-Qi (HQi; Astragalus membranaceus (Fisch.) Bunge), and Xian-He-Cao (XHC; Agrimonia pilosa f. borealis (Kitag.) Chu)-> Gui-Pi-Tang (GPT). Network analysis showed that BZL, BHSSC, DG, HQi, XHC, GPT, and Dan-Shen (DanS; Salvia miltiorrhiza var. charbonnelii (H.Lev.) C.Y.Wu) were commonly used CHMs for AA patients. Therefore, further studies for these commonly prescribed herbs are needed in functional investigations in hematopoiesis-stimulating effect and large-scale randomized controlled trials (RCT) in bone marrow failure related diseases.

Automated summary

The study investigated whether Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is beneficial to aplastic anemia (AA) patients as a complementary therapy. It found that CHM-users had lower risks of overall and anemia-related mortalities when compared to non-users. Commonly prescribed herbs for AA patients include Ban-Zhi-Lian (BZL), Bai-Hua-She-She-Cao (BHSSC), Dang-Gui (DG), Huang-Qi (HQi), Xian-He-Cao (XHC), Gui-Pi-Tang (GPT), and Dan-Shen (DanS). Further studies are needed for these herbs in hematopoiesis-stimulating effect and large-scale randomized controlled trials (RCT) in bone marrow failure related diseases.