Quality assurance of Chinese Herbal Medicines (CHMs)

As more and more people worldwide are using Chinese Herbal Medicines (CHMs), the safety of their use has raised international concern. Authentication and standardization of CHMs are needed. Authentication of a CHM includes both identifying its botanical origin and evaluating its pharmaceutical quality. In this paper, the important parameters for quality assurance are discussed. Quality control methods such as the examination of taxonomic, morphological and/or microscopic characters, fingerprint chromatography, DNA molecular marker are described and compared. Some topics related to herbal quality control such as contamination, processing as well as the new method MALDI-TOFMS are also introduced. Finally, modernization of Chinese medicine information was brought up.Food Science & TechnologyPharmacology & PharmacySCI(E)6REVIEW4337-3461