A preliminary study on the inhibitory effect of Chunghyul-dan on stroke recurrence in patients with small vessel disease.

Objective: Chunghyul-dan is a combinatorial herbal medicine, and previous works reported that it had therapeutic effects for microangiopathy, which is a major part in the progression of small vessel disease, as having anti-hypertensive, anti-hyperlipidemic, anti-apoptotic, anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory activities. Therefore, we examined the inhibitory effect of Chunghyul-dan on stroke recurrence in patients with small vessel disease. Methods: We prescribed Chunghyul-dan 600 mg a day to the patients with small vessel disease, and monitored stroke recurrence, drug compliances and adverse effect for 2 years. And then we performed follow-up brain MRI to find new vascular lesion after 2 years of Chunghyul-dan medication. As for the control, we recruited the subjects who had been managed with antiplatelet agents from a western medical hospital, and compared the rate of stroke recurrence. Results: There were 148 subjects who had been treated with Chunghyul-dan for 2 years, and new vascular events were found in three subjects. On the other hand, 208 subjects were managed with anti-platelet agents for 2 years in a Western medical hospital, and 17 of them had stroke recurrence. Therefore, 2 years of Chunghyul-dan medication reduced the odds ratio of stroke recurrence by 77% compared to the anti-platelet agents managed control. The inhibition rate increased to 79%, when adjusted for other relevant risk factors for stroke occurrence. During the study, no adverse effect was detected. Conclusion: We suggest that Chunghyul-dan could be useful for inhibition of stroke recurrence by preventing the progression of microangiopathy. Further study with a randomized controlled trial is needed to confirm this suggestion.