Asian Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Effect of Laooq-e-Katan (Linctus of Flax mucilage) as an oral bronchodilator formulation on MRC Dyspnea scale in patients with CO

Tabassum Alam¹, Azhar Jabeen², Asim Ali Khan³, Mohd Maaz², Sheikh Haneef Mohammad⁴

¹PG Scholar, Department of Moalijat (Medicine), Faculty of Unani Medicine, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi
²Asst. Professor, Department of Moalijat (Medicine), Faculty of Unani Medicine, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi.
³Head, Department of Moalijat (Medicine), Faculty of Unani Medicine, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi.
⁴Lecturer, Department of Moalijat (Medicine), Ayuvedic and Unani Tibbia College, Karol Bagh, New Delhi.

Abstract

Purpose: The method of classifying COPD as well to monitor any therapeutic intervention in COPD patients depends largely upon spirometric measurements but unfortunately disability is weakly related to the measurements of lung function. However, Medical Research Council (MRC) dyspnea scale is a simple and valid method of categorizing patients with COPD in terms of their disability that could be used to complement FEV1 in the classification of COPD severity. With this reason the present study was designed to re-evaluate the efficacy of Laooq-e-Katan (Linctus of Flax mucilage) a well known Unani pharmacopeial formulation in treating dyspnea which has been measured by a simple and standardized Medical Research Council (MRC) dyspnea scale.

Material and Methods: In this study, 60 patients were included as defined by GOLD criteria. The patients were distributed randomly by the simple randomization into test and control group. The level of dyspnea was assessed with Medical Research Council (MRC) dyspnea scale.

Results: There were 25 patients with Grade-II, Grade-III, Grade-IV Dyspnea in the test group at day zero (Day 0), out of which 16 (64.0%) patients had improved in dyspnea to Grade-I and three (12.0%) patients to Grade-0. Whereas in the control group there were 22 patients in Grade-II and Grade-III, out of which only 6 (27.27%) patients improved to Grade-I and no patient was improved to grade 0 Dyspnea. At the end of the treatment there was statistical significant difference seen in the improvement of dyspnea in the test group when compared with the control group (p = 0.009).

Conclusion: Dyspnea is an important symptom that may impact quality of life in patients with COPD. MRC-D scale was shown to be simple, fast and intelligible measurement along with categorizing patients with COPD in terms of their disability.

Keywords:

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Dyspnea, Usr-e-Tanaffus, Linctus of Flax mucilage, MRC-D scale