Guizhi Fuling Wan, a traditional Chinese herbal formula, can inhibit endometriosis growth and enhance the effects of western medicines used to treat the condition.
In the methodology, a bibliographic assessment of publications on "Guizhi Fuling Wan" and "endometriosis" indexed in international and chinese databases was conducted. Out of these, five pre-clinical studies and thirteen clinical were selected. Thereafter, targeted molecules of each herb in the formula were extracted from a Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and compared with endometriosis-related genes from DisGeNET. To expose potential therapeutic mechanisms of Guizhi Fuling Wan, pathway and gene ontology analyses were performed using David Bioinformatics Resources.
In the results discussion, it was found that both pre-clinical and clinical studies suggested that Guizhi Fuling Wan can inhibit the growth of endometriotic lesions by modulating immunity, apoptosis-regulating molecules, and angiogenesis-associated factors, while also enhancing the effects of western medicines for endometriosis. The formula likely achieves this through its impact on key pathways involved in diabetes complications, Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus infection, human cytomegalovirus infection, and atherosclerosis, which all regulate inflammation, angiogenesis, and apoptosis. The review also notes a strong connection between endometriosis and abnormal inflammatory, angiogenic, and apoptotic activities.
