This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Complementary and Alternative Medicine  • Alert me on articles by topic

What Every Facial Plastic Surgeon Must Know

Edmund deAzevedo Pribitkin, MD; Gregory Boger, MD

Arch Facial Plast Surg. 2001;3:127-132.

Herbal medicine (phytomedicine) uses remedies possessing significant pharmacological activity and, consequently, potential adverse effects and drug interactions. The explosion in sales of herbal therapies has brought many products to the marketplace that do not conform to the standards of safety and efficacy that physicians and patients expect. Unfortunately, few surgeons question patients regarding their use of herbal medicines, and 70% of patients do not reveal their use of herbal medicines to their physicians and pharmacists. All surgeons should question patients about the use of the following common herbal remedies, which may increase the risk of bleeding during surgical procedures: feverfew, garlic, ginger, ginkgo, and Asian ginseng. Physicians should exercise caution in prescribing retinoids or advising skin resurfacing in patients using St John's wort, which poses a risk of photosensitivity reaction. Several herbal medicines, such as aloe vera gel, contain pharmacologically active ingredients that may aid in wound healing. Practitioners who wish to recommend herbal medicines to patients should counsel them that products labeled as supplements have not been evaluated by the US Food and Drug Administration and that no guarantee of product quality can be made.

From the Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, Pa.

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

The potential impact of the use of homeopathic and herbal remedies on monitoring the safety of prescription products
Woodward
Hum Exp Toxicol 2005;24:219-233.
ABSTRACT  

Mycotoxins in Root Extracts of American and Asian Ginseng Bind Estrogen Receptors {alpha} and {beta}
Gray et al.
Exp. Biol. Med. 2004;229:560-568.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Ginger-Associated Overanticoagulation by Phenprocoumon
Kruth et al.
The Annals of Pharmacotherapy 2004;38:257-260.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Use by Older Adults: A Comparison of Self-Report and Physician Chart Documentation
Cohen et al.
Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences 2002;57:M223-227.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT