Effectiveness and safety of herbal medicine Ukgansan for clinical symptoms in Parkinson's disease: A pilot, randomized, assessor-blinded clinical trial

Abstract

ObjectivesParkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease in which patients are suffering various symptoms. Previous experimental studies suggested that herbal medicine Ukgansan (UGS) could be beneficial for PD. The aim of this pilot clinical trial was to evaluate the efficacy of UGS for improving clinical symptoms in patients with PD.MethodsSixty patients with idiopathic PD were randomly assigned to receive either UGS plus acupuncture or acupuncture alone for 6 weeks. During the trial, all anti-parkinsonian medications were maintained. Subjects were evaluated for various clinical assessments of PD, including the Movement Disorder Society-Sponsored Revision of the Unified PD Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) and the 39-item Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-39), until 12 weeks.ResultsIn MDS-UPDRS between the groups, no significant time x group interaction was found. In the subgroup analysis of participants with anxiety, a significant time x group interaction was found in the PDQ-39 domain of mobility (P = 0.007), activities of daily living (P = 0.042), and the PDQ-39 summary index (P = 0.048). In addition, post-hoc analysis in participants with anxiety showed a significant decrease in the domains of mobility (P = 0.001) and activities of daily living (P = 0.013) at week 7. There were no adverse events associated with UGS.ConclusionThe additional administration of UGS has the potential to significantly improve the quality of life of PD patients with anxiety. In order to create more definitive evidence, clinical trials with more rigorous methodologies should be conducted in future.Clinical trial registrationhttp://cris.nih.go.kr, identifier: KCT0003444.

Traditional Chinese Medicine for non-motor symptoms in Parkinson disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis of RCTs

“…Four studies [8,13,14,19] were judged to be low risk of detection bias as outcome assessors were blinded to group allocation. Three studies [12,17,18] were judged to be high risk of detection bias as outcome assessors were not blinded to group allocation.…”

“…We rated 7 trials [8,[13][14][15][16][17]19] to be at low risk of selection bias as they performed appropriate allocation concealment. Two trials were rated to be at high risk of selection bias as they did not report the methods of allocation concealment.…”

“…Then there are 836 papers excluded after screening titles and abstracts because of not relevant research. After full-text identified based on selection criteria, 9 eligible studies [8,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] ultimately included for quality assessment and data synthesis. The detailed screening process was summarized in the PRISMA flow diagram (Fig.…”

“…In total, 9 included RCTs [8,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] were published between 2017 and 2023, involving 1714 PD populations with sample size from 60 to 292. The patients ranged in age from 63 to 68 years old, with disease duration from 3.5 to 9.3 years.…”

“…Two trials [16,18] were to be at high risk of attrition bias, as the missing data was not performed with intention-to-treat analysis. Two trials [14,17] were to be unclear risk of attrition bias as they did not report the missing data how to be analyzed.…”