Chronic diarrhea is one of the most common complaints in clinical practice for both adults and children. The purpose of this study was to assess the commonly used Chinese herbal medicine navel therapy for the treatment of chronic diarrhea (traditional Chinese medicine syndrome of spleen deficiency). The literature search was up to June 2018. Four types of studies (clinical trials, case series, case reports, and experts' experience) researched on Chinese medicine navel therapy used alone or combined with other therapies for the treatment of chronic diarrhea all included. Information on prescriptions, effectiveness, and safety of intervention was collected. Traditional Chinese Medicine Inheritance Support System V2.5 was used to do data analysis. We included 416 studies. All these studies carried out in 194 cities of China. We obtained the most commonly used single herbs, herbal medicine combination, and Chinese patent medicine for both adults and children. The top 3 single herbs were Caryophylli Flos (Dingxiang), Cinnamomi Cortex (Rougui), and Euodiae Fructus (Wuzhuyu). The most frequently used Chinese patent medicines were Ding Gui Infantile Navel Paste and Huoxiang Zhengqi Liquid. The effectiveness assessment was based on clinical trials, but we did not perform a meta-analysis because of different study design and unsatisfactory methodological quality. No serious adverse reaction happened in original studies. The application of Chinese medicine navel therapy could be one of the ideal treatments for chronic diarrhea in the future, especially for children. However, high-quality studies are very needed to provide clear evidence.
Keywords: chronic diarrhea; literature review; navel therapy; traditional Chinese medicine.
© 2018 Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Foundation and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.