Therapeutic effect of He-Wei-Tong-Xie decoction on acute pancreatitis complicated with gastrointestinal dysfunction

Purpose: To study the therapeutic effect of He-Wei-Tong-Xie (HWXT) decoction on acute pancreatitis (AP) complicated with gastrointestinal dysfunction.
Methods: AP patients (50) were recruited from the Teaching Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and randomly divided into treatment and control groups (25 per group). All patients were evaluated at baseline, and thereafter subjected to standard therapeutic protocols, including, fasting, gastrointestinal decompression, administration of somatostatin and omeprazole. The patients in the treatment group also received 100 mL of HWTX by nasal route with high enema (three times/day). Gastrointestinal function scores (stomach ache, abdominal distension, borborygmus and defecation), and hospitalization time were evaluated on days 3 and 7 of treatment.
Results: No significant baseline differences were observed between the treatment and control groups with respect to etiological agents and AP syndrome scores (p > 0.05). However, after 3 and 7 days of treatment, all AP syndromes in treatment group showed significant improvement compared with the control patients (p < 0.01). There were no significant differences in hospitalization time and rate of recovery between the treatment and control groups (p < 0.01).
Conclusion: HWTX treatment appears to be a safe and potentially useful approach for treating AP complicated with gastrointestinal dysfunction.

Keywords
He-Wei-Tong-Xie decoction; Acute pancreatitis; Gastrointestinal dysfunction; Somatostatin; Omeprazole