Meyer-Hamme, G., Beckmann, K., Radtke, J., Efferth, T., Greten, H.J., Rostock, M., & Schroder, S. (2013). A survey of Chinese medicinal herbal treatment for chemotherapy-induced oral mucositis. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine: ECAM, 2013, 284959.
PHASE OF CARE: Active treatment
All reviewed studies reported positive effects of Chinese herbal treatment for chemotherapy-induced oral mucositis.
Additional well-designed RCT studies are needed, especially to look at the mechanism of action for each herbal remedy. Due to poor design in terms of treatment and control groups, it was almost impossible to evaluate which parts of the treatment concepts are responsible for the measured effects in the reviewed trials.
Some studies used more than one herbal treatment with different routes of administration; therefore, it was difficult to determine which agent may have been more effective in treating oral mucositis. In general, most trials had a poor design.
No recommendations for use in clinical practice were made; recommendations were made for further studies. These studies could use placebo capsules or placebo liquids. It also was recommended that future studies decrease the complexity of the treatments in order to determine what treatments were effective.