Abstract
Objective To explore the efficacy of long-term use of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) on survival time of lung cancer. Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study on lung cancer patients. A propensity score matching (PSM) was performed to balance the covariates. Progression-free survival (PFS) was the primary endpoint and overall survival (OS) was the secondary endpoint. Patients who received CHM therapy from the initial date of diagnosis of lung cancer were included in the CHM group. Patients who were not treated with CHM during the same interval were categorized in the control group. A Cox regression model was used to explore the prognostic factors related to lung cancer. Hazard ratios of different subgroups were also analyzed. Results A total of 1134 patients were included in our study: 761 patients were in the CHM group and 373 patients were in the control group. After PSM, the mPFS and mOS in the CHM group were 70.4 months and 129.1 months, respectively, while the mPFS and mOS in the control group were 23.8 months and 99.7 months, respectively. The results of survival analysis on each stage demonstrated that patients may benefit from the long-term CHM treatment especially for patients with early stage. One-year to ten-year progression-free survival rates in the CHM group were higher than those in the control group (p < 0.001). COX multivariate regression analysis indicated that CHM treatment, female, low age at diagnosis, early tumor stage, and surgery were independent protective factors against recurrence and metastasis of lung cancer. Subgroup analysis showed that CHM treatment could reduce the risk of recurrence and metastasis in each subgroup (p < 0.01). Conclusion Long-term CHM treatment with the Fuzheng Quxie Formula, which can be flexibly applied in the course of lung cancer treatment, not only has a positive influence on the progression-free survival time of lung cancer patients, but also reduces the risk of recurrence and metastasis of lung cancer.
Highlights
Lung cancer is a public health concern worldwide and remains the highest incidence rate of cancer, with 228,820 new cases and 135,720 deaths predicted in 2020 according to statistical results published by GLOBOCAN 2020 [1]
An additional 111 patients were removed, including 78 patients who were lost during the follow-up period, 2 patients who died from diseases unrelated to lung cancer, and 31 patients in the control group who used Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) treatment after the study
According to the above survival analysis and previous clinical experience, the survival time of lung cancer patients is quite different according to disease stages. erefore, we further explored the efficacy of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) treatment on both Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) at each stage
Summary
Lung cancer is a public health concern worldwide and remains the highest incidence rate of cancer, with 228,820 new cases and 135,720 deaths predicted in 2020 according to statistical results published by GLOBOCAN 2020 [1]. Statistics from the National Central Cancer Registry estimated that the total number of newly diagnosed cases of lung cancer in 2015 was about 787,000. Radiotherapy, and systemic therapy (including chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy) have all been developed for the treatment of Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine cancer, the overall cure rate and survival rate of lung cancer remain unsatisfactory. E long-term survival rate after surgery is low. E 5-year survival rate after lung cancer surgery is 22.0%–47.3% [9]. Prolonging the long-term survival is the ultimate goal of all treatments for patients with advanced-stage disease
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