Effect of Huatan Tongluo Decoction on vascular endothelial function and plaque stability in patients with carotid atherosclerosis

OBJETIVE: It is to explore the effect of Huatan Tongluo Decoction on vascular endothelial function and plaque stability in patients with carotid atherosclerosis. METHODS: Eighty-two patients with carotid atherosclerosis treated in the First Affiliated Hospital of Naval Military Medical University and Shanghai Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine from June 2019 to November 2020 were randomly divided into 2 groups. 41 patients in the control group were treated with aspirin enteric-coated tablets+simvastatin tablets for a long time, and the ones in the observation group were treated with Huatan Tongluo Decoction for 8 weeks.The changes in the scores of Traditional Chinese Medicine symptoms（dizziness, head weight, chest tightness, numbness of hands, feet and limbs, insomnia, palpitations）, vascular endothelial function [endothelin（ET-1）, nitric oxide（NO）], blood lipid level [triacylglycerol（TG）, total cholesterol（TC）, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol（HDL-C）, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol（LDL-C）], plaque indexes [carotid artery intima-media thickness（IMT）, the number of plaques, the area of plaques] after 8 weeks of treatment were observed in the two groups, the efficacy and safety of the two groups were compared. RESULTS: After treatment, the scores of each TCM symptom and the levels of ET-1, TG, TC, LDL-C, carotid artery IMT and plaque area of the two groups were significantly reduced（all P＜0.05）, and the levels of NO and HDL-C were significantly increased（all P＜0.05）, the number of plaques was significantly reduced（all P＜0.05）, and the improvement of the above indicators in the observation group was significantly better than that of the control group（all P＜0.05）; the total effective rates of the observation group and the control group respectively were 90.2%（37/41） and 73.2%（30/41）, the observation group was significantly higher than the control group（P＜0.05）; there were no serious adverse reactions during the treatment in the two groups. CONCLUSION: Short-term application of Huatan Tongluo Decoction combined with conventional western medicine in the treatment of carotid atherosclerosis can significantly reduce the symptoms of patients, regulate vascular endothelial function and blood lipid levels, help stabilize atherosclerosis, and improve clinical efficacy.