Combined Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine for Diarrhea-Predominant Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Objective To observe the efficacy of combined traditional chinese and western medicine in the treatment of diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome(IBS-D).Methods Seventysix patients were randomly treated with 50 mg pinaverium bromide tablets 3 times per day(control group,n =38) or in combination with traditional chinese medicine decoction twice per day(treatment group,n=38) for 4 weeks. The BSS scoring system was used to evaluate the curative efficacy before and after treatment. The follow-up was performed 3 months after treatment to observe the recurrence in patients achieving recovery or improvement. Results The total effective rate in treatment group was significantly higher than that in control group(86.8% vs 65.8%,P 0.05). There were no significant differences in the integrals of abdominal pain, abdominal distension, diarrhea and mucus stools between the two groups before treatment(P 0.05).At 1 month after treatment, the integral of each item was obviously lower than that in control group(P0.05). At 3 months after treatment,the rate of IBS-D recurrence or aggravation in treatment group was significantly lower than that in control group(18.2% vs46.1%,P 0.05). Conclusion Compared with western medicine alone, combined traditional chinese medicine and western medicine treatment can effectively improve short-term effects and major individual symptoms with stable long-term effects and low recurrence rate in patients with IBS-D.