Juanbi Pill Combined With Methotrexate for Rheumatoid Arthritis: Multi-center Random Controlled Clinical Trials

Rheumatoid arthritis patients are suffering from painful and swelling of joints as well as joint destruction and functional disability with the duration of disease activity. Patients and physician try to find a way to alleviate the swell and tenderness of joints to avoid irreversible joints impairment, for evidence indicating that early aggressive treatment results in greater improvement than therapy initiated later in the disease course.

As a complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), herbal medicines have the potential to achieve a clinical remission, or push the disease back to low disease activity. In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), rheumatoid arthritis is a Bi syndrome and Juanbi decotion (notopterygium root, radix angelicae pubescentis, Gentiana macrophylla, Kadsura Pepper Stem, Mulberry Twig, Angelica sinensis, Ligusticum wallichii, frankincense, Radix Aucklandiae, shaved cinnamon barka and liquorice ) is a medicine specially for Bi syndrome and it has been used in Chinese for hundreds of years. Juanbi pill is the raw extration of Juanbi decotion for the sake of convenience of quality control and storage.

Although the long term usage of Juanbi decotion, there is no high quality evidence about the decotion on rheumatoid arthritis. Using a well-designed clinical trial, the investigators will survey the effectiveness of concurrent use of this decotion in relieving disease activity. Therefore, the present study is to examine effectiveness and safety of Juanbi Pill, a compound traditional Chinese herbal medicine on rheumatoid arthritis in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Results of this study will provide evidence regarding the value of the Juanbi pill as an intervention to lower the disease activity and protect the affected joints from deformity.