Which Is Safer, Chinese Medicine or Western Medicine? Comparative Analysis Based on Chinese Spontaneous Reporting Database.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the safety differences between Chinese medicine (CM) and Western medicine (WM) based on Chinese Spontaneous Reporting Database (CSRD). METHODS: Reports of adverse events (AEs) caused by CM and WM in the CSRD between 2010 and 2011 were selected. The following assessment indicators were constructed: the proportion of serious AEs (PSE), the average number of AEs (ANA), and the coverage rate of AEs (CRA). Further comparisons were also conducted, including the drugs with the most reported serious AEs, the AEs with the biggest report number, and the 5 serious AEs of interest (including death, anaphylactic shock, coma, dyspnea and abnormal liver function). RESULTS: The PSE, ANA and CRA of WM were 1.09, 8.23 and 2.35 times higher than those of CM, respectively. The top 10 drugs with the most serious AEs were mainly injections for CM and antibiotics for WM. The AEs with the most reports were rash, pruritus, nausea, dizziness and vomiting for both CM and WM. The proportions of CM and WM in anaphylactic shock and coma were similar. For abnormal liver function and death, the proportions of WM were 5.47 and 3.00 times higher than those of CM, respectively. CONCLUSION: Based on CSRD, CM was safer than WM at the average level from the perspective of adverse drug reactions.

Traditional Chinese medicine pharmacovigilance in signal detection: decision tree-based data classification.

BACKGROUND: Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is a style of traditional medicine informed by modern medicine but built on a foundation of more than 2500 years of Chinese medical practice. According to statistics, TCM accounts for approximately 14% of total adverse drug reaction (ADR) spontaneous reporting data in China. Because of the complexity of the components in TCM formula, which makes it essentially different from Western medicine, it is critical to determine whether ADR reports of TCM should be analyzed independently. METHODS: Reports in the Chinese spontaneous reporting database between 2010 and 2011 were selected. The dataset was processed and divided into the total sample (all data) and the subsample (including TCM data only). Four different ADR signal detection methods-PRR, ROR, MHRA and IC- currently widely used in China, were applied for signal detection on the two samples. By comparison of experimental results, three of them-PRR, MHRA and IC-were chosen to do the experiment. We designed several indicators for performance evaluation such as R (recall ratio), P (precision ratio), and D (discrepancy ratio) based on the reference database and then constructed a decision tree for data classification based on such indicators. RESULTS: For PRR: R1-R2 = 0.72%, P1-P2 = 0.16% and D = 0.92%; For MHRA: R1-R2 = 0.97%, P1-P2 = 0.20% and D = 1.18%; For IC: R1-R2 = 1.44%, P2-P1 = 4.06% and D = 4.72%. The threshold of R,Pand Dis set as 2%, 2% and 3% respectively. Based on the decision tree, the results are "separation" for PRR, MHRA and IC. CONCLUSIONS: In order to improve the efficiency and accuracy of signal detection, we suggest that TCM data should be separated from the total sample when conducting analyses.