Psoriasis、Indigo Naturalis、Chinese Medicine Medicated Bath

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease. Plague-type psoriasis is the most common form of the disease, occurring in more than 80% of the cases. This type of psoriasis is characterized by sharply dermatcated, erythematous, scaling plagues that typically affect the elbows, knees, scalp, and trunk. Estimates of the prevalence of psoriasis was vary from 0.5% to 4.6%, with rate varying between countries and races. The prevalence of psoriasis was about 2% in Taiwan. The etiology of psoriasis remains unknown; however, current research mostly indicated that psoriasis was caused by multiple factors, and it was highly related to Th-17 immunal pathway.Treatment of psoriasis included topical therapy, phototherapy and systemic therapy. Although beneficial, those therapies often caused undesirable adverse effects. Traditional Chinese medicine is one of the most fuguently chosen alternative therapies in China and Taiwan, and psoriasis has been treated for centuries with topical and oral herbal prepations. Chinese medicine medicated bath is a characteristic therapy of Traditional Chinese medicine. It combines both hot bath and herbs to enhance absorption of the effective ingredients of herb. There were reports about the application of Chinese medicine medicated bath to treat psoriasis patients in China. We also used Chinese medicine medicated bath (Jing-Fu-Yau-Yu-Bau) as a complementary therapy of psoriasis patients for a long time in China Medical University Hospital. The patient felt well after using Jing-Fu-Yau-Yu-Bau. The component of Jing-Fu-Yau-Yu-Bau is paper mulberry leaf. The botanical origin of paper mulberry leaf is Broussonetia papyrifera (L.) Vent. It can clear heat, cool blood and relieve itching. Based on the 83 journal paper we searched on PubMed, there had been extracted a great deal of phenolics, terpenes and flavonoids from paper mulberry leaf that had antibacterial, antifungal, antioxidant and antineoplastic effects.

This is a single site, randomized, single-blind, controlled pilot study of Jing- Fu-Yau-Yu-Bau as a complementary therapy to treat mild to moderate plaque- type psoriasis during an 8-week period. We estimate to enroll 30 subjects (treatment group(N=15); controlled group(N=15)). We plan to investigate the efficacy and safety of Jing-Fu-Yau-Yu-Bau in Chinese subjects with mild to moderate plaque-type psoriasis.