• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.539-544
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• 2004

Herbal medicine has been used in the Eastern world for 2,000 years, and is beneficial for numerous diseases. There have been reports pertaining to the safety of herbal medicine, but there have been few reports about herbal medicine induced liver injury in Eastern or Western medicine. Most are descriptions of hepatotoxicity of certain toxic herbs. We experienced one case of drug induced liver injury in the treatment of cerebral infarction with Chungsim Yeonja-tang. Although the patient had not used medication and Chungsim Yeonja-tang has no toxic herbs in it. patient's ALP, AST, ALT, GGT was twice elevated after 20 days on medication. This was diagnosed as drug induced liver injury, possibly due to incorrect diagnosis of Sasang constitution. So no herbal medicine was given for seven days. Then Gagam Saeng Gan-tang was given. Gagam Saeng Gan-tang have been used to treat hepatic disease and have been known to have beneficial effects. After 25 days on medication, the clinical symptoms and liver function improved. So, this case is presented to bring more attention to the toxicity of herbal medicines.