Phyllencit mixture, a combination of medicinal herbs, as an antitussive agent for acute cough treatment: A pilot pre-post clinical study

Abstract

PhyllenCit, a herbal anti-cough mixture, has been traditionally used in Traditional Thai Medicine hospital, Prince of Songkla University, for the treatment of oral diseases, as well as cough. However, the efficacy of the recipe has not been validated. Therefore, this current study aimed to clinically prove the efficacy of the PhyllenCit mixture in suppressing cough and improving quality of life (QOL) in patients with acute cough. PhyllenCit mixture used for this study was prepared by a traditional Thai doctor at a Traditional Thai Medicine hospital. This study was a single-centre, open blind, pre-post clinical trial. Patients were recruited for the experiment according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The assessment of cough level, cough severity index, and a score of QOL was performed before starting the treatment. Patients with acute cough were advised to take the mixture (5 mL) orally for three days. At the end of the study, all the parameters were assessed. The frequency of cough and any adverse effects observed throughout the treatment period (day 1 to day 3) were also recorded by patients. The study revealed that after three days of the intervention, levels of cough symptoms and total severity of cough were significantly extenuated (p<0.05), which was associated with changes in throat characteristics and tonsil size. Similarly, significant improvement of QOL in the patients was observed with no adverse effects. This work scientifically proved that PhyllenCit mixture could be used as an antitussive agent in cases of acute cough.