Title:Contemporary Overview on Clinical Trials and Future Prospects of Hepato-protective Herbal Medicines
Volume: 7
Issue: 3
Author(s): Amene Alvari, Mehrnaz S. Ohadi R., Farhan J. Ahmad and M. Z. Abdin
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Hepatoprotective, herbal drugs, herbal formulation, clinical trial, current challenges.
Abstract: Till date the synthetic hepato-protective agents used in clinical practices are therapeutically non-promising and
may itself lead to hepatotoxicity. Herbal medicines and their bioactives are considered to be relatively safe and have been
used in the treatment of liver diseases for a long time. The 21st century has seen a paradigm shift towards therapeutic standardization
of herbal drugs in hepatic disorders by evidence-based randomized controlled clinical trials to support their
clinical efficacy. Even so, the specific hepato-protective clinical trial protocols for herbal medicines are not established till
now. So, the efficacy of herbal medicines needs to be evaluated through rigorously designed multicentre clinical studies.
In this review, we have enlightened the clinically evaluated hepatoprotective herbals and herbal formulations with respect
to their status in different trial stages. Moreover, the problems and their strategic solutions during the development of
clinical trial protocol for hepatoprotective herbal medicine are also addressed.
