The Chinese herbal formula Huoxiang Zhengqi for atopic dermatitis with dampness pattern (CHARM): a study protocol for a double-blinded randomized controlled trial.
The Chinese herbal formula Huoxiang Zhengqi for atopic dermatitis with dampness pattern (CHARM): a study protocol for a double-blinded randomized controlled trial. Trials 2021;22(1):81.
Study type: RCT protocol (multi-centre, n=218 planned) · Added to this library August 23, 2026
What the researchers did
The first Western-standard randomized trial to enrol patients by a *single TCM pattern* (Dampness-pattern eczema) as an inclusion criterion.
What they found
Protocol published; the trial operationalises pattern differentiation inside an RCT design.
Why it matters
The research world is beginning to test what our whole approach assumes: that the pattern, not just the herb, is the variable.
Relates to the patterns: Spleen Deficiency · Damp-Heat
This summary is educational and does not replace care from your child's pediatrician. Evidence tiers matter: a finding in cells or animals is a reason a treatment could work, not proof that it does.
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What: Sequenced acute vs chronic eczema lesions to see how the disease changes over time.
Found: Acute lesions are Th2/Th22-driven; chronic lesions add Th1 activation and epidermal thickening — the disease shifts state as it ages.
Why it matters: This measured trajectory is the classical pattern sequence — the weeping acute (Damp-Heat) lesion maturing into the dry, thickened chronic (Blood-Deficiency/Wind-Dryness) one. Two vocabularies, one timeline.
Early-onset pediatric atopic dermatitis is TH2 but also TH17 polarized in skin.
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Study type: Human skin-biopsy study (infants/children vs adults)
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Why it matters: Pediatric TCM has always treated infant eczema as its own pattern class (Spleen-centred, supply-side); the transcriptome agrees that babies are not small adults.
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Study type: Human comparative biopsy study
What: Compared eczema biology across Asian and European-American patients.
Found: Asian eczema is more IL-17-driven and "psoriasiform" — thicker, scalier, sharper-bordered — despite similar Th2 levels.
Why it matters: Eczema differs by population as well as by person. It also explains why an IL-17-suppressing ointment (indigo) earns its keep on the sharply bordered plaque.
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Why it matters: More evidence that "eczema" is several diseases — which is precisely what pattern differentiation has always claimed.