Clinical research of alleviating radiation-induced lung injury and improving the quality of life by compound Kushen injection

Abstract

Objective To investigate the effect of compound Kushen injection on the decrease of radiation-induced lung injury and improving the quality of life for patients with lung cancer during radiotherapy.Methods 229 lung cancer patients who meet the required criteria were separated randomly into two groups:treatment group and control group.Acute radiation-induced lung injury was assessed after applying Kushen injection on 0,2 and 3 months among these patients.Kamofsky was assessed before and after the treatment.Results The incidences of level 0,1,2 and 3 acute radiation-induced lung injury were 49.53 ％ (53/107),42.06 ％ (45/107),7.48 ％ (8/107) and 0.93 ％ (1/107) respectively for treatment group and 32.48 ％ (38/117),58.12 ％ (68/117),9.40 ％ (11/117) and 0 for control group by the end of second month of medication.The incidences of level 0,1,2 and 3 acute radiation-induced lung injury were 62.96 ％ (68/108),33.33 ％ (36/108),1.85 ％ (2/108) and 1.85 ％ (2/108) respectively for treatment group and 35.34 ％ (4/116),49.14 ％ (57/116),11.21％ (13/116),4.31％ (5/116) for control group by the end of third month of medication.There were significant difference about the incidence of acute radiation-induced lung injury between the two groups.The results of Karnofsky between the treatment group and control group showed that the improvement rates were 41.44 ％ (46 cases) and 11.02 ％ (13 cases),the stable rates were 50.45 ％ (56 cases) and 66.1％ (78 cases) and the decrease rates were 8.11％ (9 cases) and 22.88 ％ (27 cases).The differences were statistically significant (P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion Compound Kushen injection is one of ideal medicines for the auxiliary therapy for lung cancer,it can reduce radiation-induced side-effect and improve quality of life. Key words: Lung neoplasms; Compound Kushen injection; Radiation-induced lung injury; Karnofsky