Treatment of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome with Chinese medicine in China: opportunity, advancement and challenges.

Chinese medicine (CM) has been used in the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) for 30 years and the demonstrated therapeutic effects of CM, such as reducing plasma HIV viral load, increasing CD4(+)T cell counts, promoting immunity reconstitution, ameliorating symptoms and signs, improving the health related quality of life (HRQOL) and counteracting against the effects of anti-retroviral drugs, were summarized and reviewed in this article. The authors point out that it had been a good opportunity to use CM for the treatment of HIV infection and AIDS in the past and also there are huge challenges ahead for CM research and clinicians to discover more effective CM and its underlying mechanisms for treatment of AIDS.