Tao Suo, Xixi Gu, Roland Andersson, Huaixing Ma, Wei Zhang, Wei Deng, Boheng Zhang, Dingfang Cai, Xinyu Qin

Small bowel obstruction (SBO) is one of the most common emergent complications of general surgery. Intra-abdominal adhesions are the leading cause of SBO. Because surgery can induce new adhesions, non-operative management is preferred in the absence of signs of peritonitis or strangulation. Oral traditional Chinese herbal medicine has long been used as a non-operative therapy to treat adhesive SBO in China. Many controlled trials have been conducted to investigate its therapeutic value in resolving adhesive SBO.