title: Chinese medicine as complementary therapy for female infertility.
abstract: Chinese medicine (CM) has been used in clinical treatment for thousands of years in China, Japan, Korea, and other countries. CM is at present attracting many attentions around the world for reproductive health care and disease prevention, including treatment of female infertility. This review focuses on the CM treatment for female infertility patients, and supplies a summary on the efficacy, safety, and mechanism of some Chinese herbal medicines, herbal medicine-derived active compounds, and acupuncture. A large number of researches have reported that CM could alleviate or even cure female infertility by regulating hormone, improving reproductive outcome of in vivo fertilization, affecting embryonic implantation, curing polycystic ovarian syndrome, endometriosis, pelvic inflammatory disease, relieving mental stress, and regulating immune system. Meanwhile, a few studies claimed that there was little adverse reaction of CM in randomized controlled trials. However, up to present there is a lack of adequate evidences with molecular mechanistic researches and randomized controlled trials to prove the CM as an effective and safe treatment for infertility. Thus, utility of CM as a complementary medicine will be a feasible method to improve the outcome of female infertility treatment.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113-8655, Japan.
authors.forename: Ju-Feng
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113-8655, Japan.
authors.forename: Yoshinori
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Inagaki
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Reproductive Immunology, Hospital & Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Fudan University Shanghai Medical College, Shanghai, 200011, China.|Academy of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Mordern Medicine of Fudan University, Shanghai, 200011, China.
authors.forename: Jian-Feng
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Reproductive Immunology, Hospital & Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Fudan University Shanghai Medical College, Shanghai, 200011, China.|Academy of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Mordern Medicine of Fudan University, Shanghai, 200011, China.
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa-shi, 227-8561, Japan. ppsong-tky@umin.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Pei-Pei
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Song
mesh_terms: D000529:Complementary Therapies; D010064:Embryo Implantation; D005260:Female; D005307:Fertilization in Vitro; D006728:Hormones / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D007247:Infertility, Female / Q000276:immunology / Q000628:therapy*; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional
chemical_list: D006728:Hormones
keywords: Chinese medicine; combination therapy; complementary medicine; female infertility