• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.264-272
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• 2010

Objectives : This study was carried out to measure perceptions about Traditional Korean Medicine hospitals and provide data for improvement of TKM hospital management. Methods : We surveyed the general population from 1st to 17th December, 2008, and patients visiting a TKM hospital from 1st June to 9th December, 2008. Results : Result as follows. 1. The response ratio for the generally preferred medical institution was in the order of western medical clinic, pharmacy, general hospital, TKM clinic, TKM hospital. 2. The response ratio for the preferred medical institution for herbal medicine treatment was in the order of TKM clinic, herbal medicine store, TKM hospital, pharmacy. The preferred medical institution for acupuncture treatment was in the order of TKM clinic, TKM hospital, acupuncture clinic, public health center. 3. The most common response to reason for receiving traditional Korean medical care was "traditional Korean medical care is more effective than western medical care." 4. The proportion of first treatment and second treatment of patients visiting at TKM hospital was about 1:1. 5. 72.3% of patients had been to another medical institution. 6. The response ratio for the first visited medical institution for the same disease was in the order of general hospital, western medical hospital, western medical clinic, TKM clinic. 7. The response ratio for the concern about TKM treatment was in the order of expensive charge for TKM treatment, uncertainty of TKM treatment effect. Conclusions : Through this research, we can understand the perception about TKM hospital treatment of the general population and patients visiting TKM hospitals.

• Journal of Korean Traditional Oncology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.23-31
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• 2013

Objectives : The purpose of this case study is to demonstrate the effectiveness of Traditional Korean Medicine as an adjunctive management for breast cancer treatment. Methods : A 56 year-old female patient diagnosed with stage IA(pT1cN0M0) of breast cancer was admitted our hospital. The patient had surgical resection followed by radiation therapy, and conducted adjuvant therapy with aromatase inhibitor. The patient's chief complaints were dry cough, thirst and fatigue, all of which were caused by radiation therapy. Traditional Korean herbal medicine was prescribed for symptom management. The patient's subjective symptoms such as cough, thirst and fatigue were evaluated by NRS. Results : Fatigue was significantly improved within a week. The severity of dry cough and thirst also was decreased after a few courses of herbal medicine treatment. Conclusion : This case study suggests that Tradition Korean Medicine would be beneficial for the patients who are suffering from adverse effects of the standard treatment of cancer.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.124-130
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• 2008

Herbal plants or traditional Oriental medicine have been considered as a potential resource of new drug development worldwide. However, traditional Korean medicine has given little effort to the field of new drug development. This study reports on a plant-derived hepatotherapeutic drug, silymarin, which has been popularly used in many countries. It was discovered as an active compound from Silybum marianum (milk thistle) which has been known as a medicinal plant having hepatoprotective properties in both European and Asian countries. While it has been used as an herbal prescription in Asia, its active compounds or scientific mechanisms were intensively studied in Europe. Currently, silymarin is one of the most powerful herbal extracts in the world, and its usage is being expanded to many other medical purposes. This report would be helpful for providing an informative example of herbal-derived drug development to Oriental doctors or scientists in the Oriental medicinal field.

• The Journal of Pediatrics of Korean Medicine
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.52-60
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• 2016

Objectives The purpose of this study is to analyze studies about the effects of topical application of Chinese herbal medicine for allergic rhinitis within randomized controlled trials (RCT). Methods The search database includes KJTK (Korean Traditional Knowledge Portal), OASIS (Oriental Medicine Advanced Searching Integrated system), CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), PubMed, and EMBASE. We used the following key search terms: "allergic rhinitis", "traditional Chinese medicine", "traditional Korean medicine", "Chinese herbal medicine", "randomized controlled trial", "clinical study", "nasal spray", and "nasal drop" Results Five studies were selected for analysis. Three studies used nasal spray of Chinese herbal medicine and two studies used nasal drops of Chinese herbal medicine for the intervention. Frequently used herbs were Magnoliae Flos (辛夷), Scutellariae Radix (黃芩), Coptidis Rhizoma (黃連), and Astragali Radix (黃芪). For the outcome measures, studies used symptom score, questionnaire of Quality of Life, nasal airway resistance, or laboratory studies. From all 5 studies, it has been shown that topical application of Chinese herbal medicine was effective for improving symptoms of allergic rhinitis. Two out of five studies showed statistical difference between study group and control group. Conclusions This study shows that topical application of Chinese herbal medicine can improve symptoms of allergic rhinitis. Well-designed RCT studies with low risk of bias and studies with outcome measures for assessing the immunomodulatory effects are necessary to confirm these findings.

• Journal of Korean Medical classics
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.23-34
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• 2023

Objectives : We propose a method to disassemble Traditional East Asian Medicine herbal formulas using machine learning. Methods : After creating a model using Byte Pair Encoding(BPE) and G-Score, the model was trained with training data. Afterwards, the learned model was applied to the test data, of which the results were compared with expert opinion. Results : The results acquired through the model were not significantly different from those of modern expert opinions. However, there were cases where the meaning was partially unclear, while there were cases where new knowledge could be obtained through the disassembling process. Conclusions : It is expected that disassembling herbal formulas through the proposed method in this study will help save resources required to understand complex ones.

• Journal of Korean Medical classics
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.133-142
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• 2010

Preconditions for the separation of prescribing and dispensing medicinal herbs in Traditional Korean Medicine are classification of medicinal herbs for general public and special medical uses, establishment of national medicinal herb distribution company of governmental base, restriction in purchase of medicinal herbs for special medical use, partnership between doctors and pharmacists of Traditional Korean Medicine, and coverage of herbal medicine-based medication in national health insurance, etc. The number of Traditional Korean Medicine Pharmacists which was born during 'the herbal medicine conflict' initiated in 1993, goes over 1,000 and will increase by 120 annually. The number of Traditional Korean Medical Doctors is over 17,000 and increases by 850 annually. So in order to engage partnership between two groups, the government have to arrange the number of outputs of each group. Standardization and classification of diagnosis and diseases in Traditional Korean Medicine is a matter of course in the separation of prescribing and dispensing medicinal herbs. Related societies and academies need to do researches with governmental fund first. After these works, we can launch a task force team for implementation of process for the separation of prescribing and dispensing medicinal herbs in Traditional Korean Medicine properly. Entering the national health insurance system for full coverage of Korean Medicine care service will be essential for the patients. Implementation the separation of prescribing and dispensing medicinal herbs in Traditional Korean Medicine would be the core of health insurance coverage for medication.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.28-33
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• 2014

Background: Samul-tang (Si-Wu-Tang, SMT) is a traditional herbal formula, which has been widely used to treat various diseases such as menstrual irregularity, bleeding and leucorrhea. Although many studies have investigated the pharmacological properties of SMT, its toxicity information has not yet been fully elucidated. Methods: Five Sprague Dawley (SD) rats of each sex were given a single dose (5000 mg/kg) of SMT by gavage; control rats received the vehicle only. After the single administration, mortality, clinical signs, body weight changes and gross findings were monitored for 15 days in accordance with Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) principles. Results: In a single oral dose toxicity study, there was no adverse effect on mortality, clinical sign, body weight change or gross finding in any treatment group. Conclusions: The results indicate that SMT did not induce toxic effects at a dose level up to 5000 mg/kg in rats and its median lethal dose ($LD_{50}$) was considered to be over 5000 mg/kg/day body weight for both genders.

• Journal of Oriental Neuropsychiatry
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.93-114
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• 2012

Objective : This study aimed to review the performance of traditional herbal prescriptions for treating dementia and present a strategy for research on dementia therapy utilizing herbal medicine. Methods : A definition was made to clarify the technology regarding the development of herbal prescriptions for treating dementia. The queries were compounded based on the initial keywords provided by experts in the field, then applied to the Web of Science database search engines from January 1986 to September 2011 to search related scientific articles. Before performing the analysis, papers were extracted from the initial search reviewed by experts and 80 articles were selected. Then, the selected papers were analyzed in terms of publish year, country, and type of herbal prescriptions. Furthermore, the research performance evaluation for treating dementia by herbal prescriptions was also created in terms of country and organization based on forward citation analysis. In addition to, for the evaluation regarding research quality, we classified and reviewed papers into two types: clinical studies and experimental studies. Results : According to the quantitative information analysis of 80 articles, the number of papers has increased by 21.9% per the yearly mean from 1995, and Japan had the largest portion within this research field. There were 34 kinds of traditional herbal prescriptions, among them Ukgansan had the highest number of studies followed by Jodeungsan, Dangkisoosan and so on. In addition, quality index as calculated by cites per paper is higher than average in Switzerland, Turkey and Japan. In the view of the evaluation on quality there were 12 clinical studies, 8 RCT reported that herbal prescriptions had efficacy at cognition, behavioral & psychological symptoms (BPSD) and activity of daily life (ADL) in various type of dementia. In experimental studies most of the studies were performed using animal models. The studies using Ukgansan were aimed at improving BPSD. The papers studied with Jodeungsan and Dangkisoosan targeted vascular dementia. Conclusions : In this study, research to develop traditional herbal prescriptions for treating dementia has the potential to improve symptoms since herbal medicines work as both multi-function and multi-target in dementia with multiple pathological or neurotoxic pathways. Therefore, the results of the research should be used in order to establish strategies to develop technology for treating dementia with traditional herbal prescriptions in the future.

• Korean Journal of Acupuncture
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.172-178
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• 2017

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to report a case of traditional Korean Medicine effect on a patient with rhabdomyolysis who appealed leg pain, numbness and weakness. Methods : A patient received traditional Korean Medicine including acupuncture, herbal medicine, moxibustion, and cupping therapy daily. We evaluated the clinical results by observing the patient's symptoms, NRS(Numerical Rating Scale), MMT(Manual Muscle Test) grade and DITI(Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging). Results : After traditional Korean Medicine, the patient's pain and numbness decreased from NRS 10 to 1~2 and weakness improved from Gr3- to Gr4. And CPK(creatine phosphokinase) numerical value decreased from 330(IU/L) to 164 and body heat status improved. Conclusions : Traditional Korean Medicine can be effective in reducing rhabdomyolysis patients' symptoms and changing examination numerical value. And further studies on traditional Korean Medicine of rhabdomyolysis should be carried out.

• The Journal of Korean Obstetrics and Gynecology
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.227-244
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• 2019

Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of application of Traditional East Asian Herbal Medicine (TEAM) in the treatment of Atrophic Vaginitis (AV). Methods: Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) were obtained from PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, CNKI, RISS, NDSL, and KISS. The risk of bias was assessed by using Cochrane's risk of bias tool, and RevMan 5.3 software was used. Results: 26 RCTs with 3,162 patients were identified and reviewed. Among them, 21 RCTs observe the effect of integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine. 23 RCTs reported treatment groups was statistically effective than control groups in the study. Also, the recurrence rate was estimated in 10 RCTs and was lower than control groups. 12 studies observed adverse events (AEs) and severe AEs were not reported. Conclusions: This review suggested that TEAM was safe and effective in the treatment of AV. TEAM may also decrease the recurrence rate. However, this could not be proven conclusively. To ensure evidence-based clinical practice, well-designed trials with larger sample sizes are needed.