It is possible that Chinese herbs combined with Western medicines may improve symptoms, quality of life and absorption of pulmonary infiltration, and decrease the corticosteroid dosage for SARS patients.

PMID: 

Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2012 Oct 17 ;10:CD004882. Epub 2012 Oct 17. PMID: 23076910

Abstract Title: 

Chinese herbs combined with Western medicine for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

Abstract: 

BACKGROUND: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is an acute respiratory disease caused by a novel coronavirus, which first appeared in Foshan City, China on 22 December 2002. Chinese herbs were used in its treatment.OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the possible effectiveness and safety of Chinese herbs combined with Western medicines versus Western medicines alone for SARS patients.SEARCH METHODS: We searched CENTRAL 2012, Issue 3, MEDLINE (1966 to February Week 4, 2012), EMBASE (1990 to March 2012) and the Chinese Biomedical Literature (Issue 3, 2012).SELECTION CRITERIA: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-RCTs of Chinese herbs combined with Western medicines versus Western medicines alone for patients diagnosed with SARS.DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two review authors (XL, MZ) independently extracted trial data. We extracted dichotomous and continuous data with 95% confidence intervals (CI). For dichotomous data, we used risk ratio (RR). For continuous data, we calculated mean differences (MD). We calculated overall results based on the random-effects model if heterogeneity existed between studies. If no heterogeneity was detected between the studies, we used the fixed-effect model. We used the Z score and the Chi(2) test with significance being set at P

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