Ideas and methods of clinical research on angina pectoris in coronary heart disease in Chinese medicine

  Coronary angina is a common and frequent disease of the cardiovascular system, and is considered by Chinese medicine to belong to the category of “chest paralysis” and “heart pain”. In recent years, modern medical research on the prevention and treatment of coronary heart disease has developed rapidly and can be summarized in three aspects: (1) increasing coronary blood flow and improving blood supply to ischemic myocardium; (2) reducing myocardial oxygen consumption; and (3) enhancing the ability of myocardial cells themselves to resist ischemia and hypoxia. Despite the remarkable development of modern medical drug therapy and interventional treatment in rapidly improving blood supply and relieving angina attacks, there is still a lack of truly effective countermeasures to control cardiac events (sudden death, myocardial infarction) and prevent the occurrence of angina in coronary heart disease. Both clinical and experimental studies have demonstrated that TCM treatment of coronary angina has the ability to dilate coronary arteries, improve myocardial ischemia, inhibit platelet adhesion, and improve exercise capacity and quality of life of patients. In particular, the study of blood activation and blood stasis formulae is more in-depth, which proves that the mechanism of its prevention and treatment of coronary angina, in addition to improving myocardial blood supply, can also regulate the expression of genes related to myocardial ischemia, such as nitric oxide synthase (NOS) and heat shock protein (HSP), and participate in the self-regulation of ischemic cardiomyocytes, etc. In the study of coronary angina, the following aspects of interstitial problems should be noted.  With the popularization and application of modern imaging technology, the diagnosis of coronary heart disease has developed rapidly. Due to the limitation of the equipment conditions in TCM clinics, although there have been individual reports of using nuclear myocardial scan and coronary angiography to observe the efficacy of TCM, most of them still use the criteria of 20 years ago, i.e., clinical symptoms, electrocardiogram and response to nitroglycerin-type drugs. With the aging of the population and the increase of co-morbidities, the clinical manifestations of coronary angina have gradually become more complex and atypical angina has gradually increased. The reliability of general electrocardiogram is only about 40%, and nitroglycerin drugs also have a certain effect on pain caused by esophageal spasm and stenosing pericarditis, etc. In order to observe the effect of Chinese medicine against coronary angina, not to mention the reliability of diagnosis, even for patients with coronary angina for sure, there are many factors that affect the observation of clinical efficacy. For example, most patients show normal electrocardiogram performance when angina does not strike, and abnormal changes appear only when angina strikes. The severity of angina attacks and episodes are closely related to the patient’s living environment, habits, mental state and activity intensity. How to exclude the influence of patients’ own factors and environmental factors on patients’ ECG and clinical symptoms is an extremely difficult problem. In recent years, it has been reported that the efficacy of Chinese medicine in the treatment of angina pectoris in coronary heart disease has been observed by using sub-polar magnitude ECG exercise test and 24-hour ECG monitoring of the accumulated degree of myocardial ischemia, which has increased the credibility of the observed results to a certain extent. However, the reliability of sub-polar ECG exercise test in diagnosing myocardial ischemia in coronary heart disease is only about 70%, and the sensitivity of 24-hour ECG monitoring in exertional angina is lacking.  At present, some new Chinese medicines for the treatment of coronary heart disease are used in the clinic every year in China, but except for a very few medicines, most of them cannot enter the door of the international market. The reason for this is that apart from the fact that pharmacological research cannot meet the requirements of clear effective drug components and clear pharmacokinetic and pharmacokinetic processes, the main reason is that international unified efficacy standards are not fully adopted to prove the efficacy and safety of Chinese medicines in the treatment of coronary angina. The main reason is that the international standard of efficacy has not been fully adopted to prove the efficacy and safety of Chinese medicine in the treatment of coronary angina. It is obvious that objective pathological and morphological evidence, which is less influenced by other factors, is the most convincing for evaluating the reliability of efficacy. The observation of the efficacy of Chinese medicine in the treatment of coronary heart disease angina has not been properly applied to its imaging morphology due to the limitations of domestic economic conditions and traditional perceptions. In addition, clinical studies emphasize most on randomized double-blind to exclude the influence of human factors on the study results. Clinical double-blind studies are difficult due to the differences in the nature and taste and color of Chinese medicine itself, which to some extent also affects the reliability of the observed results. As far as possible, the randomized double-blind comparison method should be used to compare and observe the efficacy reliability, safety and long-term survival quality of Chinese medicine with those of the western drugs currently commonly used in the treatment of coronary heart disease, such as anti-cardiac pain, nitroglycerin, aspirin and previously applied proprietary Chinese medicines, in accordance with the international diagnostic and efficacy determination standards, so that it is possible to objectively evaluate the efficacy of Chinese medicine in the treatment of angina pectoris in coronary heart disease and gradually improve its research level.  The combination of evidence and disease is the key to the combination of evidence and disease. In the process of identifying the nature of clinical symptoms (cold, heat, yin and yang) at a certain stage of the disease in TCM, quantitative content is given as much as possible. On this basis, further analysis and research of modern medicine quantitative detection indexes and the relevant laws of symptom severity; in the process of Chinese medicine identification, learn the understanding of Western medicine disease including pathological and physiological changes, and use the traditional theory of Chinese medicine to grasp the pathological characteristics of a particular stage of angina pectoris in coronary heart disease, the attribution of the evidence and its pathological and physiological changes and the connection between the pathological mechanism and evidence of Chinese medicine. The organic combination of the two aspects should be the combination of Chinese and Western medicine in the study of clinical coronary angina pectoris.  Although Chinese medicine and Western medicine have different theoretical systems and methods of understanding the physiological and pathological changes in the human body, there are similarities in the understanding of Chinese medicine and Western medicine. In a certain stage of the same disease, Western medicine diseases have the same pathological changes and most of the clinical symptoms are similar, and this consistency is reflected in the clinical understanding of Chinese medicine, which should also have its own rules. For example, during the acute attack of coronary angina, the pathological changes are coronary artery atherosclerosis, spasm, platelet adhesion, aggregation, thrombosis, etc., which is considered by Chinese medicine as “pain if not pass”, and the causes of the blockage are mostly qi stagnation, cold condensation, blood stasis, phlegm blockage, etc. In addition, the cause of exertional angina is “labor”, according to the understanding of Chinese medicine that movement consumes qi, the pathogenesis is considered to be qi deficiency and blood stasis, and can be treated with qi and blood activation methods; variant angina or unstable angina triggered by coronary artery spasm, the pain mostly occurs at 4-5 a.m., according to Chinese medicine Most of them belong to Yang deficiency and cold clotting, so it is appropriate to treat them by warming Yang and promoting blood circulation, activating blood stasis method, etc. In the treatment of angina pectoris in coronary heart disease, all of them have shown certain effects. On this basis, combined with traditional Chinese medicine theoretical understanding, focus on the characteristics of the internal organs and the connection between the internal organs when supporting the righteousness, pay attention to the nature of the evil Qi when eliminating the evil, and constantly summarize the verification, will play a role in improving the clinical research of Chinese medicine in the treatment of angina pectoris in coronary heart disease.  The organic combination of evidence and disease, the evaluation of the efficacy of Chinese medicine in the treatment of angina pectoris in coronary heart disease, paying attention to both pathophysiological changes and the overall state of the organism, can be expected to reach a more clinically relevant and convincing conclusion. With regard to the relationship between blood stasis and the severity of coronary angina, a lot of research work has been conducted in China, proving that there is a relationship between the severity of blood stasis and the type and severity of coronary angina. For example, unstable angina pectoris is heavier than stable angina pectoris, which is also in line with the conclusion of modern microscopic research on the evidence. We have comparatively studied the relationship between the severity of blood stasis and the severity of coronary artery lesions as shown by coronary angiography, and proved that there is a correlation between the degree of coronary artery stenosis and the severity of blood stasis. Although the internal physiopathological changes are reflected in clinical symptoms due to individual differences, there is always a certain pattern in the clinical symptoms of the same pathological changes, which provides a basis for the combination of evidence and disease. The research in the field of coronary heart disease has not only studied the correlation between the lightness and severity of blood stasis evidence and the severity and different types of coronary angina, but also combined the microscopic changes in blood stasis evidence (such as changes in blood rheology and platelet function) as objective criteria for the lightness and severity of blood stasis evidence and the severity and severity types of coronary angina, and conducted comparative studies for clinical evaluation. It has established a more scientific method for the clinical evaluation of the efficacy of blood-stasis drugs in the treatment of coronary heart disease and angina pectoris, which is worthy of reference for the study of other evidence such as Qi deficiency evidence and phlegm obstruction evidence in coronary heart disease and angina pectoris.  3. To find a breakthrough in the clinical research of TCM for the treatment of angina pectoris in coronary heart disease by taking advantage of its own strengths TCM prescriptions are complex in composition, often containing dozens or hundreds of components in a single Chinese medicine, and the single target effect on a certain pathophysiological change is not as good as that of chemically synthesized drugs in Western medicine. In terms of dilating coronary arteries and rapidly relieving angina, it is difficult to compare a Chinese medicine with nitroglycerin and cardiac pain, which are commonly used in Western medicine for the treatment of coronary angina. Whether it is the price, or the onset of action time and strength of action, a single targeted action of Western medicine chemical drugs have certain advantages over Chinese medicine. How to give full play to their advantages and confirm such advantages in front of the powerful reference of western medicine is not only the problem faced by TCM in treating angina pectoris of coronary heart disease, but also the problem faced by the whole TCM clinic.  Since single target organ action is inferior to that of Western medicine chemical drugs, TCM often attributes its advantages to overall functional regulation. For many functional and mental diseases, TCM holistic regulation has certain advantages, but for a disease where the pathophysiological changes are basically clear, blindly boasting about its holistic regulation can instead put itself in a substitute or auxiliary position. The aim of coronary angina treatment is to rapidly relieve pain, reduce or control angina attacks, prevent cardiac events and improve the quality of patient survival. The overall regulation of TCM, whether it is regulating the balance of yin and yang or the operation of qi and blood, ultimately still has to be implemented into specific action links and curative effects. Without the improvement of physiopathological changes, the mere improvement of clinical symptoms cannot be regarded as the advantage of TCM. Therefore, the study of Chinese medicine for the treatment of coronary angina should not emphasize the overall regulation in a hollow manner, but also study the specific therapeutic effects of the drugs. 70’s research on Chinese medicine for coronary angina has proved that Chinese medicine has the effects of dilating coronary arteries, anti-platelet adhesion, and preventing thrombosis, etc. What is the effect of these pharmacological effects on the whole? This requires not only experimental studies to confirm, but more importantly, double-blind randomized comparative observations through large samples and multicenter to objectively evaluate.  Compared with western chemically synthesized drugs, TCM treatment of coronary angina is generally considered to have the following advantages: (1) relatively few toxic side effects, suitable for long-term application; (2) a drug can act on multiple pathological aspects of coronary angina; (3) improvement of patients’ concomitant symptoms such as shortness of breath, weakness, mental depression, and reduced sexual function are more obvious; (4) some TCMs for the prevention and treatment of coronary angina The active ingredients have shown promising application prospects, such as geranoside, tanshinone, hydromorphone, earth kinase, etc. Modern medical imaging technology provides scientific methods to observe the efficacy of Chinese medicine, and the idea and method of studying the ability of cardiomyocytes to resist ischemia and hypoxia damage from the cellular molecular level is worthy of reference for TCM research. Physiological phenomena observed by advanced scientific methods of modern medicine, and repeatedly verify and summarize them to form a more complete scientific evaluation system of TCM itself. On this basis, we will make full use of modern science and technology to study the mechanism of action of TCM in preventing and treating coronary angina, and develop effective Chinese medicine compound, effective parts and monomer drugs, which will bring a bright future to human beings in preventing and treating coronary angina.