Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 6, 2026
Author Spotlight: Evaluating the Adjuvant Efficacy and Safety of Angong Niuhuang Pill in Viral Encephalitis Treatment
Published on: April 19, 2024
Whether Syndrome Differentiation Affects Treatment Result: Study Protocol of MaZiRenWan () for Functional
Chung-Wah Cheng1, Li Zhang2, Chen Zhao1
1Hong Kong Chinese Medicine Clinical Study Centre, School of Chinese Medicine, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Background:
Syndrome is one of the most important concepts in Chinese medicine (CM) theory. However, it was not well accounted in most of randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
Objectives:
To determine whether CM syndrome differentiation affects the treatment results, functional constipation (FC) was selected as a target disease, and MaZiRenWan (, MZRW), a classic CM formula commonly used for constipation with excessive heat syndrome, was selected for study.
Methods:
It is an 18-week prospective double-blinded, doubledummy RCT, including 2-week run-in, 8-week treatment and 8-week post treatment follow-up. A total of 120 FC patients diagnosed as excessive heat syndrome will be recruited from the First Teaching Hospital of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Baokang Affiliated Hospital of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Patients will be randomly allocated into fixed MZRW (f_MZRW) granule group, modified MZRW (m_MZRW) granule group or bisacodyl group. For m_MZRW group, no more than two herbal granules can be added according to the syndrome differentiation for individual participants. The primary end point is the mean of complete spontaneous bowel movements (CSBMs) per week during the treatment period. Secondary end points include mean of CSBMs per week during follow-up, stool form, global symptom improvement, constipation and constipation-related symptoms assessment, CM syndrome change, and reported adverse events.
Discussion:
This trial is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of these three interventions for FC patients with the CM syndrome of excessive heat, and to determine the change of CM syndrome and the progress of disease during the treatment course. The results are important to explore whether syndrome differentiation is important for the therapeutic effect of a formula on a disease. [Trial registration: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (Reg No. ChiCTR-TRC-13003742); protocol version: MZRW/NSFC-81173363 (2015.05.04)].
Related Concept Videos
01:21Drugs for Treatment of Constipation-Predominant IBS
01:20Bioequivalence Experimental Study Designs: Completely Randomized and Randomized Block Designs
01:13Resultant of a General Distributed Loading
Examples such as load distribution due to wind and load distribution on a bridge illustrate how this concept is used to analyze and design safe, reliable structures under variable loading conditions. Most structures, such as residential buildings, bridges, and towers, are...
01:31Resultant Moment: Scalar Formulation
To determine the resultant moment, the moments caused by all the forces in a system in the x-y plane are considered. Positive moments are typically...
01:21Transfer Function in Control Systems
To derive the transfer function, consider a general nth-order linear time-invariant...
01:23Types of Biopharmaceutical Studies: Controlled and Non-Controlled Approaches
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast,...