Clinical benefits of herbal medicinal products in gynecological complaints

Herbal medicines have traditionally been used for a variety of diseases, but their use in recent therapeutic strategies is limited due to a lack of clinical evidence. The aim was to assess the clinical benefit of medicinal plants in gynecological complaints by evaluating patient-reported outcomes from PhytoVIS, a large pharmacoepidemiological database.

For data collection, patients were interviewed by an anonymous questionnaire about their personal experiences with herbal medicines. This included information on indication, gender, age, therapeutic benefit and side effects. After data cleaning, 1,405 data entries were descriptively analysed. The efficacy of herbal preparations was evaluated by Clinical Global Impression Scale-Efficacy (CGI-E).

In the data set, 228 women (12-65 years) use herbal medicines for menstrual complaints. For 99.4% of these patients a CGI-E of 1 or higher was observed. 31.6% of the population had the highest possible clinical benefits with a score of four. 306 women (31 years and older) described taking herbal medicines for menopausal symptoms. For 97.8% of these patients a CGI-E of at least 1 was observed, whereas 31.0% had the highest possible clinical benefits with a score of four. 851 female patients (12 years and older) use herbal medicines for the treatment of bladder and urinary tract symptoms, of which 98.5% had a CGI-E of 1 or higher. 45.4% of the population had the highest possible clinical benefits with a score of four.

For all three indications the therapeutic effect of herbal medicines was very high.

 

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Artikel online veröffentlicht:
16. November 2023