Shenfu!

I will readily admit I am stepping outside the bounds of my expertise with this post – with respect to the “shenfu injection” and its effects on physiology. The authors describe shenfu as “originated from Shenfu decoction, a well-known traditional Chinese formulation restoring ‘Yang’ from collapse, tonifying ‘Qi’ for relieving desertion”. More specifically, from a physiologic standpoint: “Ginsenosides and aconite alkaloids are the main active ingredients in Shenfu. Ginsenosides are the determinant contributor to the vasodilator benefit of Shenfu, whereas the alkaloids play a vital role in the cardiac electrophysiological effect of Shenfu by blocking ion channels”. In China, a pharmacologic shenfu distillate is used routinely to treat sepsis and septic shock as a 100mL daily injection – and this is a placebo-controlled trial endeavoring to demonstrate its efficacy.

At face value, the trial appears reasonable – a targeted enrollment of 160 patients with a goal of detecting a 20% difference in mortality at 28-days, based on an expected overall mortality of 40%. Their primary outcome, however, were the co-primary outcomes of “length of ICU stay, the duration of vasopressor use, illness severity, and the degree of organ dysfunction.” A proper study, of course, has a single primary outcome – and, considering the study was powered for a mortality difference, this patient-oriented outcome probably ought to have been made primary.

Regardless, from the results presented here, it is reasonable to suggest this is promising and worthy of additional evaluation. Several outcomes – ICU LOS, APACHE II score, and duration of vasopressor us – reached statistical significance favoring the intervention. The mortality outcome did not meet statistical significance with the intervention at 20.5% and the placebo at 27.8%. However, an absolute mortality improvement of 7.3% is nothing to sneeze at – and I would be happy to see more work performed to replicate or generalize these results.

“Shenfu injection for improving cellular immunity and clinical outcome in patients with sepsis or septic shock”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28029485