Evidence-Based CAM for Respiratory Health

Call for Papers

Respiratory conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and allergic rhinitis are major burdens for health care systems globally. The prevalence of these chronic conditions is increasing due to a range of factors. There is no cure for any of them based on Western pharmacotherapies. Consequently, there is evidence of significant use of a range of CAM therapies (such as acupuncture and herbal medicine), either as a stand-alone therapy or in combination with pharmacotherapy.

There has been increasing academic research to determine the efficacy of CAM therapies being used for the management chronic respiratory conditions and also to investigate the mechanisms of actions of such interventions. The knowledge gained from such studies may lead to new therapeutic developments for the conditions.

This issue of Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine welcomes contributions of original research articles and high-quality systematic review papers that will stimulate further research efforts to determine the efficacy, cost-effectiveness, and elucidation of relevant therapies in the management of allergic rhinitis, COPD, and asthma.

The Editors are particularly interested in articles that employ rigorous scientific methods (such as RCTs and systematic reviews) and that address the effective translation of the findings on CAM research into mainstream health practice. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Papers that evaluate efficacy, safety, and/or cost-effectiveness of CAM therapy for chronic respiratory diseases
• Systematic reviews that determine efficacy, safety, and/or cost-effectiveness of CAM therapy for chronic respiratory diseases
• Quality control of herbal medicines that are commonly used in the trials and treatment of chronic respiratory diseases
• Therapies that have been demonstrated to be clinically beneficial
• Papers that demonstrated effective application of both scientific methodology and CAM theory in trial design

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable:

Lead Guest Editor

• Charlie Changli Xue, Traditional and Complementary Medicine Research Program, Health Innovations Research Institute, RMIT University, Bundoora, Melbourne, VIC 3083, Australia; School of Health Sciences, RMIT University, Bundoora, Melbourne, VIC 3083, Australia

Guest Editors

• Xiu-Min Li, Mount Sinai Medical School, 1425 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10029, USA
• Nanshan Zhong, Guangzhou Medical College, Guangzhou, China
• Lin Lin, Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine, China
• George Lewith, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK