Contemporary overview on clinical trials and future prospects of hepato-protective herbal medicines.

Till date the synthetic hepato-protective agents used in clinical practices are therapeutically non-promising and may itself lead to hepatotoxicity. Herbal medicines and their bioactives are considered to be relatively safe and have been used in the treatment of liver diseases for a long time. The 21st century has seen a paradigm shift towards therapeutic standardization of herbal drugs in hepatic disorders by evidence-based randomized controlled clinical trials to support their clinical efficacy.