Clinical studies with traditional Chinese medicine in the past decade and future research and development

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is currently considered a complementary or alternative medical system in most Western countries and has been increasingly accepted worldwide. More and more clinical trials on TCM have been conducted internationally, and scientists worldwide are becoming increasingly interested in the evaluation of clinical efficacy of TCM based on clinical trials. This paper reviews the situation of clinical trials on TCM in the past decade, including systematic reviews about clinical trials either focusing on the treatment of disease with TCM approaches or focusing on one herbal product, conduction of clinical trials on TCM either with randomization and controlled methods or general observation. Some general issues on the conduct of clinical trials on TCM, such as randomization, control, quality of life (QOL), patient reported outcomes (PROs) and biomarkers, quality control, safety evaluation and case studies, are discussed, and accordingly some suggestions are proposed.