Treatment of secretory otitis media with kampo medicine

Kampo medicine is a traditional Japanese herbal medicine that is known as Sairei-to and has been used to treat otitis media. This preparation was given orally for 4 weeks to 35 children with secretory otitis media (SOM). Four of 46 ears (8.7%) completely resolved while 32 ears (69.6%) showed a partial improvement without serious adverse reaction. Our findings indicate that Kampo medicine may resolve the inflammation and immune response associated with SOM. Further studies in its mechanism of action are warranted.

[Combined treatment of chronic prostatitis with sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim and hachimi-ji-oh-gan]

Treatment of chronic prostatitis is difficult and many antimicrobial drugs have been tried. Although these drugs showed good permeability into prostatic fluid in experimental studies, they have limited value in clinical use and development of more effective drugs has been anticipated. A study was performed on the effect of Hachimi-ji-ji-oh-gan, a traditional Chinese medicine, for the treatment of chronic prostatitis. Symptoms were improved in 53% of the patients treated with sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim alone for two weeks and in 84% of those treated with Hachimi-ji-oh-gan in addition to sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim for two weeks. Since Hachimi-ji-oh-gan has no antimicrobial effect, the drug may change the characteristics of the prostatic tissue or prostatic fluid providing a favorable condition for antimicrobial agents to penetrate into the prostatic fluid. Further examination is necessary to disclose the machanism of Hachimi-ji-oh-gan on the effect of prostatitis.