Evaluation of the efficacy and safety of herbal medicine for treating work-related chronic low back pain: A study protocol for a multicenter, randomized, controlled, clinical trial

Traditional Chinese herbal compound as complementary treatment for nonspecific low back pain: A randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND

This prospective randomized controlled trial was designed to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of Bu Shen Tong Luo herbal compound as a complementary treatment for nonspecific low back pain (NSLBP).

METHODS

A total of 76 patients with NSLBP included from January 2022 to June 2023 according to the criteria were randomly divided into Bushen Tongluo formula (BSTL) group (n = 38) and celecoxib group (n = 38). According to Traditional Chinese Medicine principles, patients of 2 groups were divided into 5 syndrome types. Celecoxib or BSTL herbal compound were used to treat NSLBP of each group for 3 weeks, every week the Visual Analog Scale (VAS), Oswestry Disability Index, and Japanese Orthopaedic Association scores of each patient was record and compared to evaluate the clinical efficacy, and adverse reaction was reported to evaluate the safety of 2 interventions.

RESULTS

A total of 71 patients finished the follow-up, including 36 patients in BSTL group and 35 patients in celecoxib group. The result showed that within 3 weeks, both BSTL and celecoxib interventions were able to treat NSLBP, with improvements in VAS scores and waist function index. However, there were no significant differences in clinical outcomes between these 2 interventions. Then we divided the patients into 5 syndromes on the basis of traditional Chinese medicine principles and observed their clinical outcomes. We found that celecoxib had similar improvements in VAS score and waist function index for each syndrome type and most of the syndromes in the BSTL group, except for the SRBZ syndrome. In the treatment of SRBZ syndrome, BSTL prescription showed no statistically significant clinical improvement. Meanwhile, in the treatment of HSBZ syndrome of NSLBP, BSTL prescription showed better clinical results than celecoxib, although there was no difference in VAS scores between the 2 groups, patients in BSXL group had better waist function than those in celecoxib group.

CONCLUSION

Both BSTL herbal compound and celecoxib are effective and safe in the clinical treatment of NSLBP, and BSTL herbal compound had unique advantages in the treatment of HSBZ syndrome type of NSLBP especially in waist function improvement.

Bioactive phytoconstituents as potent inhibitors of casein kinase-2: dual implications in cancer and COVID-19 therapeutics

Casein kinase 2 (CK2) is a conserved serine/threonine-protein kinase involved in hematopoietic cell survival, cell cycle control, DNA repair, and other cellular processes. It plays a significant role in cancer progression and viral infection. CK2 is considered a potential drug target in cancers and COVID-19 therapy. In this study, we have performed a virtual screening of phytoconstituents from the IMPPAT database to identify some potential inhibitors of CK2. The initial filter was the physicochemical properties of the molecules following the Lipinski rule of five. Then binding affinity calculation, PAINS filter, ADMET, and PASS analyses followed by interaction analysis were carried out to discover nontoxic and better hits. Finally, two compounds, stylopine and dehydroevodiamines with appreciable affinity and specific interaction towards CK2, were identified. Their time-evolution analyses were carried out using all-atom molecular dynamics simulation, principal component analysis and free energy landscape. Altogether, we propose that stylopine and dehydroevodiamines can be further explored in in vitro and in vivo settings to develop anticancer and antiviral therapeutics.

Showing protein–ligands interactions, electrostatic potential of CK2 bound to selected compounds, free energy landscapes of CK2-stylopine, and CK2-dehydroevodiamines complexes.