Abstract
Objectives: This study aimed to assess the clinical characteristics of patients who complained of heartburn and to report the effects of Sogunjung-tang granules on heartburn. Methods: Observation was carried out on 30 patients with heartburn who were treated in Dongshin University Oriental Medicine Hospital from 1 October 2018 to 3 July 2019. For relieving heartburn, an oriental medical therapy of Sogunjung-tang granules was administered. To evaluate the effect of treatment, the visual analog scale (VAS) was used. Results: Females predominated among the patients (86.7% of the total). The patients were mostly aged in their 50s and the average age was 56.8 years. In the medical histories of the patients, other diseases (neuropsychiatric disease, cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, urologic disease, uterine disease etc.) were the most common (34.7%) and gastrointestinal disease was the second most common (22.4%). The patients took Sosiho-tang granules plus Sogunjung-tang granules for a maximum of 282 days. The number of patients who took medication within 10 days of experiencing heartburn was the highest and the number of patients who took medication more than 30 days of experiencing heartburn was the lowest. The scores on the visual analog scale (VAS) were significantly improved after treatment, the average decreasing from 7.0 to 3.1. Before taking the granules, the average rate of improvement for patients who recorded less than VAS 6 was 80%. Six out of seven inpatients showed more than two VAS changes on 3.8 day of taking medicine, and 23 outpatients showed more than two VAS changes on the second visit. Conclusions: This study suggests that Sogunjung-tang granules is probably effective in the treatment of heartburn.
