Liao YH, et al. – Traditional Chinese medicine treatment effect on long–term survival of lung cancer patients, was illustrated in this study. Based on data obtained, adjunctive therapy with traditional Chinese medicine seemed to improve overall survival of lung cancer patients. Moreover, this study suggested the use of traditional Chinese medicine as an adjunctive therapy for cancer treatment.

Methods

• In this study, analysts evaluated whether traditional Chinese medicine combined with conventional cancer treatment improved overall survival of lung cancer patients.
• A retrospective cohort study on 111,564 newly diagnosed lung cancer patients in 2000–2009 from National Health Insurance Program database, was performed.

Results

• Data demonstrated traditional Chinese medicine use for lung cancer care in a total of 23,803 (21.31%) patients.
• In addition, eligible participants were followed up until 2011 with a mean follow-up period of 1.96 years (standard deviation 2.55) for non-TCM users and 3.04 years (2.85) for traditional Chinese medicine users.
• As compared with patients without traditional Chinese medicine utilization after multivariate adjustment, patients with traditional Chinese medicine utilization were significantly more likely to have a 32% decreased risk of death [hazard ratio = 0.62; 95% confidence interval = 0.61–0.63].
• A similar significant reduction risk across various subgroups of chronic lung diseases was noticed.
• Both in the entire lung cancer (0.81; 0.72–0.91) and matched populations (0.86; 0.78–0.95), Qing Zao Jiu Fei Tang was the most effective traditional Chinese medicine agent for mortality reduction.