Clinical observation of elderly idiopathic nephrotic syndrome treated with integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To observe the clinical effect of integrated traditional Chinese and western medicine (TCM-WM) in treating the elderly idiopathic nephrotic syndrome (INS). METHODS: Eighty-two patients of the elderly INS were randomly divided into the TCM-WM group and the control group. Forty-one patients of the TCM-WM group were treated with prednisone, Cytoxan (CTX) and Chinese medicinal herbs according to Syndrome-type, the other 41 patients of the control group were treated with WM alone. Clinical remission rate, adverse reaction, recurrence rate and remission period were observed. RESULTS: The complete remission rate and total remission rate of the TCM-WM group were 58.5% and 85.4%, significantly higher than those of the control group (39.0%, 63.4%, P < 0.01). The adverse reaction rate of the TCM-WM group (36.6%) was significantly lower than that of the control group (80.5%, P < 0.01). A follow-up of 35.1 +/- 9.7 months showed that there was no significant difference in the recurrence rate between two groups (P > 0.05), but the average remission period (30.6 +/- 3.8 months) of the TCM-WM group was significantly longer than that of the control group (12.7 +/- 3.7 months, P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: TCM-WM treatment is obviously superior to treatment with WM alone in increasing clinical remission rate, relieving adverse reaction rate and extending remission period.