Therapeutic Risk and Benefits of Concomitantly Using Herbal Medicines and Conventional Medicines: From the Perspectives of Evidence Based on Randomized Controlled Trials and Clinical Risk Management

Abstract

Despite increased awareness of the potential of herb-drug interactions (HDIs), the lack of rigorous clinical evidence regarding the significance provides a challenge for clinicians and consumers to make rational decisions about the safe combination of herbal and conventional medicines. This review addressed HDIs based on evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Literature was identified by performing a PubMed search till January 2017. Risk description and clinical risk management were described. Among 74 finally included RCTs, 17 RCTs (22.97%) simply addressed pharmacodynamic HDIs. Fifty-seven RCTs (77.03%) investigated pharmacokinetic HDIs and twenty-eight of them showed potential or actual clinical relevance. The extent of an HDI may be associated with the factors such as pharmacogenomics, dose of active ingredients in herbs, time course of interaction, characteristics of the object drugs (e.g., administration routes and pharmacokinetic profiles), modification of herbal prescription compositions, and coexistence of inducers and inhibitors. Clinical professionals should enhance risk management on HDIs such as increasing awareness of potential changes in therapeutic risk and benefits, inquiring patients about all currently used conventional medicines and herbal medicines and supplements, automatically detecting highly substantial significant HDI by computerized reminder system, selecting the alternatives, adjusting dose, reviewing the appropriateness of physician orders, educating patients to monitor for drug-interaction symptoms, and paying attention to follow-up visit and consultation.

Figure 1

Framework for rational combination use of conventional medicines and herbal medicines.