Herb-induced liver injury is an important issue in musculoskeletal diseases where herbal medicine is most frequently used. The low prevalence of drug-induced liver injury (DILI) gives rise to the need for large-scale patient studies. The objective of this study is to report on the incidence of liver injury from herbal medicine in musculoskeletal disease patients as large-scale studies are scarce.~Of 32,675 inpatients taking herbal medicine at 7 locations of a Korean medicine hospital between 2005 and 2013, we screened for liver injury in 6,894 patients with liver function tests (LFTs) at admission and discharge. LFTs included t-bilirubin, AST, ALT, and ALP. We assessed for risk factors for liver injury at discharge.~Participants received the most frequently used complementary and alternative medicine treatment contents (herbal medicine, acupuncture, pharmacopuncture, bee venom pharmacopuncture, and Chuna manipulation) administered to musculoskeletal disease patients at this hospital.
Herb-induced liver injury is an important issue in musculoskeletal diseases where herbal medicine is most frequently used. The low prevalence of drug-induced liver injury (DILI) gives rise to the need for large-scale patient studies. We assessed the prevalence of liver injury of 6,894 musculoskeletal disease inpatients taking herbal medicine.