The Clinical Efficacy of Shitei-to on Intractable Hiccups

The clinical efficacy of therapy for intractable hiccups using Shitei-to, a folk medicines, was evaluated in 21 patients. Clinical effectiveness was observed in 11 cases, thus resulting in an efficacy rate of 52.4%.Particularly, the hiccups were relieved within two days by the treatment of only Shitei-to in 6 cases, and by the administration of Shitei-to in 2 cases that had been unsuccessfully treated by other drugs for hiccups. In addition, the efficacy rate was 66.7% for centric hiccups and 16.7% for peripheral hiccups. Accordingly, the clinical efficacy of Shitei-to was observed to be significantly higher for centric hiccups than for peripheral hiccups (p< 0.05 Wilcoxon ranksum test).Our findings showed Shitei-to to be very effective for treating patients with intractable hiccups. Furthermore, the clinical efficacy of this herbal medicine was higher for centric hiccups caused by cerebropathy than for peripheral hiccups caused by internal disease.