Thinking on syndrome differentiation treatment and personalized therapy for tumor

Abstract

The concepts of Western medicine in treating tumor have changed markedly in recent years, and begun to put more emphasis on the whole survival status of patients. With recent emergence of targeted drugs, it was found that curative effects of the same targeted drugs in treating patients with the same tumor type even the same tumor pathological subtype but different therapeutic targets may be different. On the contrary, the curative effects of different targeted drugs in treating patients with different tumor types but the same therapeutic targets may be similar. Accordingly, the viewpoint of personalized therapy is advocated in Western medicine. Under the guidance of syndrome differentiation treatment in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), patients with the same tumor and different syndromes should be treated by different herbs, and patients with different tumor and the same syndrome should be treated by the same herbs. Both the theories of "the same treatment for the same syndrome" and "the same treatment for the same therapeutic target" indicate that personalized therapy in Western medicine is similar to TCM syndrome differentiation treatment. The article focuses on "different treatments for the same disease" as well as "the same treatment for different diseases" to describe the similar points between personalized therapy and TCM syndrome differentiation treatment and thereby proves that TCM syndrome differentiation treatment is a scientific and essential approach in treating tumor. At the same time, the article also points out the problems and solution methods of TCM syndrome differentiation treatment.