英国南安普顿大学科学家将测试中草药在治疗复发性尿路感染中的作用，以研究能否用中草药替代抗生素来治疗此类症状。这是英国首次批准对中草药进行临床试验研究。

 该临床试验属于双盲（研究对象和研究者都不了解试验分组情况，由研究设计者来安排和控制全部试验）、随机实验，由英国国家健康研究所资助。据南安普顿大学官网介绍，将有80位女性参与这一实验，她们在过去一年内都出现过至少3次尿路感染症状。这些研究对象或将接受由中医开具的“个性化”中草药药方，或将接受初级保健医生开具的“标准化”草药药方，治疗周期16周。

南安普顿大学研究人员安德鲁·弗劳尔表示，据记载，中草药在治疗复发性尿路感染上有2000多年的历史，中国更近期的临床研究提供了很多初步证据说明，中草药可以缓解复发性尿路感染症状，而且可以降低感染的频率。“不过，还需要进行更为严格的研究，如果这次实验成功，实验数据将有助于进行规模更大、目的更明确的试验。”弗劳尔说。

    在英国，尿路感染是女性最常见的细菌感染症状之一，约40%到50%英国女性经历过尿路感染的“小插曲”。而在这些女性当中，又有20%到30%会出现复发性尿路感染。

    抗生素是治疗急性和复发性尿路感染的传统药物，尽管它可以缩短严重症状的持续时间，但据估计，20%用甲氧苄氨嘧啶和头孢菌素进行治疗的病例及50%用阿莫西林进行治疗的病例，均出现了细菌抗药性现象。

    英国中草药注册局主席艾玛·费伦特表示，细菌抗药性问题越来越严重，而中草药在替代抗生素治疗某些疾病，如复发性尿路感染、急性咳嗽、喉咙肿痛等方面可能会扮演重要角色。费伦特认为，对中草药进行更严格临床试验十分关键，它有助于将中草药推广到初级保健“前线”，减少英国人对抗生素的依赖，并防止更广泛的抗生素抗药性出现。（来源：科技日报  记者 刘园园）

Chinese herbal medicine for treating recurrent urinary tract infections in women

Abstract  Recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs) are a common problem that can have a serious negative impact on well-being and healthcare costs. Although preventative antibiotics can help reduce numbers of recurrent infections, there are growing concerns about antibiotic resistance, side effects and the lack of long-term benefits from treatment. Consequently, alternative treatments such as Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) are being considered. We evaluated the evidence for the effectiveness and safety of CHM for treating recurrent UTIs in women. Our searches to May 2015 for Western and July 2014 for Chinese literature led to the inclusion of seven studies that met our selection criteria for this review. These involved a total of 542 women. The studies suggested that CHM used either on its own or with antibiotic treatment may be more effective than antibiotics alone for relieving acute UTIs and preventing recurrent episodes. There were only two studies that explicitly stated that adverse events were to be reported; neither reported any adverse events. However, studies were small and assessed as having poor methodological quality; and most study participants were post-menopausal. Therefore, results should be interpreted cautiously and can only be considered as preliminary findings that may not be relevant to pre-menopausal women. Further research is required to provide more rigorous evidence before CHM can be routinely recommended as a treatment option for recurrent UTIs.

原文链接：http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD010446.pub2/full