The retrospective case study has been finished at the National clinical research base of traditional Chinese medicine for major disease pediatric pneumonia, and the research center organized the field training of prospective-study to coordinated units. Based on the primary statistical outcomes of retrospective case study and the discussion around prospective-study during the training, investigators found it difficult to include simplex viral infection, therefore, investigators revised the inclusion criteria and treatment protocol of the pragmatic randomized controlled trial.~The block randomization is used in this trial. Random numbers are generated by SPSS software. Statistical analysis staff and those who perform the follow-up are blinded. Sample size calculation was performed, which was 369, and considering drop-out or withdrawal, investigators plan to enroll 450 patients (300 in experimental group, 150 in control).
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine for treatment of pediatric pneumonia. It is a multicenter randomized controlled trial.