Vol.100 No.2 contentsPRACTICA OTO-RHINO-LARYNGOLOGICA
Vol. 100 No. 2 February 2007
Effects of the Herbal Medicine "Juzen-taiho-to"
on Otitis-Prone Children
Yumiko Maruyama and Shigeru Hoshida
(Kurobe City Hospital)
Makoto Ito and Mitsuru Furukawa
(Kanazawa University Graduate School of Medicine)
Juzen-taiho-to (JTT) is known as a herbal medicine that improves immune function. We evaluated whether JTT has a beneficial effect in otitis-prone children. Twenty otitis-prone infants took JTT at 0.1-0.14 mg/kg/day twice a day for three months. The medication compliance rate was 85％. The frequency of otitis media purulenta significantly decreased (t-test, p＝.000, Wilcoxon signed rank test, p＝.000) by the oral administration of JTT. The number of days of fever (t, p＝.000, Wilcoxon, p＝.000), antibiotic administration (t, p＝.002, Wilcoxon, p＝.001), hospital visits (t, p＝.014, Wilcoxon, p＝.005), and emergency hospital visits (t, p＝.000, Wilcoxon, p＝.000) also showed significant decreases after taking JTT as compared with before.
The onset and progression of infection depends on the balance between the reproductive power of microbes and host defense. The effects of JTT on otitis-prone individuals have not been investigated before. JTT is thought to be one of the effective treatments for otitis-prone cases, and avoiding the overuse of antibiotics would prevent the increase of drug-resistant bacteria both in terms of their number and level of resistance.
Key words :herbal medicine, Juzen-taiho-to, otitis-prone, immune function, drug-resistant bacteria