Classical Chinese Herbal Formulas in the Treatment of Coronary Heart Disease: A Narrative Review

Objective: To summarize the current evidence for 8 frequently prescribed Chinese herbal formulas (CHF) as treatments for angina pectoris in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) and the associated adverse reactions. Methods: Seven electronic databases were screened from their inception through July 2018 for all evidence related to classical CHF for the treatment of patients with CHD. Results: CHF improves CHD outcomes in terms of angina pectoris, electrocardiogram results, Chinese medicine syndromes and biomarkers iomarkers. The combination of CHF and Western medicine (WM) is more effective on CHD than WM alone. The use of CHF to treat CHD shows the same or better clinical effects as the use of WM alone. The 8 investigated CHF do not induce hepatic and renal toxicity or other serious adverse effects. Conclusions: The safety and efficacy of 8 frequently prescribed herbal formulas for treating CHD have been confirmed in many studies. The findings of these studies are positive but should be interpreted cautiously due to the poor methodological quality of the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and meta-analyses. Additional high-quality, multi-center, large-sample RCTs should be performed to confirm these results.