Role of traditional Chinese medicine in the regulation of inflammatory mediators in paediatric asthma

Abstract Background: In many nations, there has been an increase in the prevalence of allergic diseases, many of which lack therapies for recovery. In addition, there are concerns regarding the use of conventional medicine, particularly corticosteroids, in children. Accordingly, in the case of asthma, many chronic allergic patients are looking at complementary and alternative drugs to treat their condition. Objective: The study intended to observe the impact of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) prescriptions children with asthma, with a specific focus on their impact on the molecular mechanism of asthma. Method: A total number of 167 children with symptom of asthma were included in the study and were randomly allocated to two groups – those who received traditional Chinese medicine (TCM, the TCM group, n = 90) and those who were given salbutamol plus montelukast (SM, the SM group, n = 77). Different TCM treatments were given to patients in the TCM group, while salbutamol and montelukast were given to the SM group. Theappropriate treatment was given to both groups for 12 weeks. The patient who are getting TCM treatment had 42 cases, and the SM group had 35 cases. Real-time quantitative fluorescent PCR detects interleukin 10 and interleukin 17 (IL-10 and IL17 respectively) and matrix metal-oproteinase 9 commonly known as MMP-9 expression levels including monocyte blood transforming growth factor 1 (MBTGF-β1). A diagnosis of IL-10 orIL-17 or, MMP-9 as well as MBTGF- β1 is monitored in peripheral blood which were treated before and after consecutively. Results: MBTGF-β1-RNA decreased among the SM group children after the treatment Whereas after treatment no major variances in MMP-9 among TCM and the SM children group were noted (0.05>0.05). The amount of IL-10 including IL-17 and MMP-9 expressively declined (p = 0.01, 0.04 and 0.03 respectively) in the TCM group. On the other hand, MMP-9 and MBTGF- β1 levels expressively declined in the SM group following therapy. The IL-10 as well as IL-17, and MBTGF-β1 and MMP-9 values in the two groups were not significantly different (> 0.05). The differences between IL-17 and c-ACT scores in the Chinese medicine group and SM group were adversely correlated. Conclusions: Traditional Chinese Medicine has controlling consequence on secretions of childhood asthma inflammatory mediators and help in asthma management immune mechanism. [Ethiop. J. Health Dev. 2020; 34(4):262-266] Key words: Paediatric asthma, traditional Chinese medicine, children, Chinese herbal medicin