Asian Journal
Of Traditional Medicines

Abstract: Despite the wide use of Unani Medicine treatment there is a relative paucity of data able to demonstrate convincingly the safety and efficacy of these complementary and alternative practices. Therefore, a systematic analysis of alternative treatments for tonsillitis and pharyngitis will be carried out and a rigorous clinical investigation of Unani Medicine compared with allopathic medicine. We conducted a direct case control, monocentric, prospective, randomized authentic allopathic controlled, two-arm parallel group clinical trial in Shifa-ul-Mulk Memorial Hospital for Eastern Medicine at Madinat-ul-Hikmah, Hamdard University. The area has 27-75-villages close to an urban centre. Patients (n=113) were randomly assigned to receive 500mg Lozin thrice daily or cephradine 250 mg every six hours or 500 mg every twelve hours. The study period was 5-7 days with a window for the follow-up visit of 2-15 days because of the variable duration of sore throat symptoms. Both medications caused a significant improvement in all the signs and symptoms noted at baseline after a 10-day treatment period. Infection was initially detected in 92 % vs 90 % of patients. After treatment, it was present in only 3 patients at the end of therapy visit representing a decline of 96.7 % vs 94.4 %. There was also a significant decrease in systemic symptoms like cough, difficulty in swallowing and fever (95.32 % vs 91.8 % reduction). Clinically, 96.6 % vs 94.2 % (test versus control) of patients were cured, 2.4 % improved and there was a treatment failure of 1% vs 3% in the patients who needed rescue medication. It is concluded that the efficacy of herbal treatment is similar to that of allopathic medicine for the treatment of acute pharyngitis. There were no untoward side effects associated with the use of this treatment and it was well accepted by all the patients. Of course, this supports the added safety of the herbal medicine.

Key words: acute pharyngitis, herbal medicine, cephradine