The herbal medicine, sairei-to, prevents endotoxin-induced otitis media with effusion in the guinea pig

With current pharmacotherapy, otitis media with effusion (OME) is often recurrent and even develops to become chronic. There is now considerable experimental and clinical evidence that the cilia in the tubotympanum play an important part in the prevention of OME. A herbal medicine, sairei-to, has been shown to stimulate the ciliary activity in vitro, and oral administration of the medicine also stimulated the ciliary activity in the tubotympanum rather than physiological states. This study was designed to investigate whether oral administration of sairei-to could prevent experimental OME in the guinea pig. A total of 120 guinea pigs were used. The control group was treated with intratympanic injection of 0.1 ml of physiologic saline solution. The saline-control group was treated with oral administration of physiologic saline solution for 14 successive days. The low-dosage group and the high-dosage group were treated with oral administration of 120 and 600 mg/kg of sairei-to for 14 successive days, respect...