OBJECTIVETo study the effect of retention enema of Chinese herbal medicine combined with allopurinol in treating hyperuricaemia (HUE).

METHODSSeventy-eight patients with HUE were assigned to two: groups, the 40 patients in the treated group were treated with retention enema of Chinese herbal medicine combined with oral intake of allopurinol, and the 38 patients in the control group were treated with allopurinol alone. The therapeutic course for all was 6 weeks. The clinical efficacy, changes of symptoms, blood levels of uric acid and lipids, renal function, and 24 h urinary micro-albumin were observed.

RESULTSThe total effective rate was: 92.5% in the treated group, which was significantly higher than that in the control group (68.4%, P<0.05). After treatment, the score of symptoms in the treated group decreased from 9.43+/-1.15 scores to 3.25+/-0.85 scores, significantly lower than that in the control group (9.75+/-1.43 scores vs 9.25+/-0.82 scores, P<0.01). Moreover, the post-treatment improvements in blood uric acid, blood lipids, renal function and 24h urinary micro-albumin in the treated group were all better than those in the control group (P<0.05 or P<0.01).

CONCLUSIONRetention enema with: Chinese herbal medicine combined with allopurinol could obviously reduce the uric acid level in blood, improve patients' renal function and lipid metabolism, and alleviate the clinical symptoms in patients with HUE.