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CUHK to start TCM clinical trials of osteoporosis with Mainland experts
Extensive research has been conducted in the use of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to treat osteoporosis. Some of the TCM treatments have already been introduced into the market. In order to ensure the effectiveness and efficacy of the TCM in treating osteoporosis, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Chinese scholars on the mainland worked with WHO to establish ¡§The guidelines on TCM for preclinical evaluation and clinical trials in Osteoporosis¡¨. The guidelines detail the evidence-based approach to evaluate TCM in treating osteoporosis. The guidelines give a protocol for the academia, health service providers and pharmaceutical companies to evaluate the drug effectiveness of TCM in line with the Western medicine. The research in TCM in osteoporosis has achieved significant results and attracted attention from the world. Our clinical study results published by the World Scientific this year demonstrated that a 12-month oral administration of herbal formula with Yin Yang Huo (Epimedium Leptorhizum) as the main component was able to treat and prevent osteoporosis, with an average increase of 2% in bone mineral density at the relevant skeletal sites, i.e. the sites with a high risk of osteoporotic fractures. The Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology of The Chinese University of Hong Kong also pioneered the use of microCT technology to measure the 3-dimensional bone structure and bone architecture can increase the precision in predicting the bone strength to 80-90%, thus enhancing the effectiveness in diagnosing osteoporosis in the future. A newer technology of using nanoCT to measure the 3-dimentional bone structure and bone architecture is undergoing research now. An international symposium, ¡§2005 International Symposium on Quality of Bone and Scaffold Biomaterials evaluated by microCT, pQCT, QCT and MRI¡¨ was held on 17 and 18 October 2005 at the Postgraduate Education Centre of The Chinese University of Hong Kong at the Prince of Wales Hospital.
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