Sore throat is a widespread acute respiratory tract illness which affects all age groups. In China, many Chinese herbal medicines are used to treat this illness. Because the majority of clinical research into traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as a treatment for sore throat failed to meet world standards of clinical research reporting, the authors could not recommend any preparation or formulation for clinical use in the previous published version.
In this updated review, we included a total of 12 studies (including five new studies), involving 1954 participants. Six Chinese herbal medicines may facilitate the improvement of symptoms and increase the rate of recovery. Two studies separately reported one case of diarrhoea and one case of mild nausea; two trials reported no adverse events in the treatment group; and other studies did not report any adverse events. We identified ten studies as being of poor methodological quality and only two studies as being of medium methodological quality. Chinese medicinal herbs may be the treatment choice for sore throat, but we cannot recommend any particular preparation or formulation over another as we did not find any well-designed studies to provide strong evidence to conclusively support or reject the use of Chinese traditional herbal medicines in the treatment of sore throat. Enhancing the quality of research into Chinese medicinal herbs for sore throat is imperative, and stronger evidence from high quality, randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are needed.