Early therapeutic interventions of traditional Chinese medicine in COVID-19 patients: A retrospective cohort study

Objective To observe the early interventions of traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) on the conversion time of nucleic acid in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and find possible underlying mechanisms of action. Methods A retrospective cohort study was conducted on 300 confirmed COVID-19 patients who were treated with TCM, at a designated hospital in China. The patients were categorized into three groups: TCM1, TCM2 and TCM3, who respectively received TCM interventions within 7, 8–14, and greater than 15 days of hospitalization. Different indicators such as the conversion time of pharyngeal swab nucleic acid, the conversion time of fecal nucleic acid, length of hospital stay, and inflammatory markers (leukocyte count, and lymphocyte count and percentage) were analyzed to observe the impact of early TCM interventions on these groups. Results The median conversion times of pharyngeal swab nucleic acid in the three groups were 5.5, 7 and 16 d (P