Efficacy and safety of herbal medicine (Binafuxi granules) for the common cold with fever: A multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase II clinical trial

Binafuxi granules are a traditional Uighur medicine (TUM) for treating the common cold with fever. However, high-quality clinical studies supporting its efficacy and safety are lacking. In this multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase II clinical trial, patients with common cold and fever were randomly assigned to a high-dose group, low-dose group, and placebo group in a 1:1:1 ratio. Outcomes were time to fever relief, time to fever clearance, proportion of afebrile patients, time to symptom disappearance, rate of symptom disappearance, effective rate, emergency drug usage and safety assessment. A total of 235 patients were recruited. Of these, 234 were included in the full analysis set (FAS), and 217 were included in the per-protocol set (PPS). In the FAS analysis, the median time to fever relief was 6.00 h, 5.54 h and 10.65 h (P = 0.31) in the high-dose group, low-dose group and placebo group, respectively. The median time to fever clearance was 18.29 h, 20.08 h and 25.00 h (P = 0.0018), respectively, and the proportion of afebrile patients was 92.4%, 89.7% and 71.4% (P = 0.0002), respectively. There was a significant difference in the disappearance time and disappearance rate of all symptoms and of individual symptoms. No serious adverse events were found. Binafuxi granules can dose-dependently shorten the fever course and improve clinical symptoms in patients suffering from the common cold with fever. This trial was registered at Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR-IIR-17013379).