Abstract: Objective To analyze the clinical characteristics of herb-induced liver injury(HILI). Methods Clinical data of the patients such as medical history, symptoms, signs, examination results, treatment and prognosis were collected and retrospectively analyzed. Results The majority of the 140 HILI patients were female(67.14%), aged from 40 to 69 years old. The herbal medicine was mainly decoction in formulation(58.57%) which mainly contained Polygonum multiflorum, Corydalis ambigua and Tripterygium wilfordii. Xianlinggubao capsules, Xiaoying mixture, Huolisu oral liquid, Jingwu capsules were the commonest to induce liver injure in the involved 40 kinds of Chinese patent medicines. The common clinical symptoms were fatigue, anorexia, jaundice, etc. Hepatocellular injury was the main clinical classification, accounting for 78.57%. There were significantly differences between alanine transaminase, aspartate aminotransferase and alkaline phosphatase among different classifications of HILI. According to Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method, only 2.86% of cases were classified as highly probable and 70.71% as probable. Most patients had a good prognosis. Conclusion Traditional Chinese medicine can lead to liver injury, which is common in middle-aged and elderly women, mainly hepatocyte injury type, the cause of liver injury of traditional Chinese medicine is complex, and the prognosis is good.

Key words: Liver injury, Chinese herbal medicine, Clinical characteristics