Traditional Chinese medicine as adjunctive therapy improves the long-term survival of lung cancer patients

Traditional Chinese medicine is one of the popular alternative treatments for cancer, mainly enhancing host immune response and reducing adverse effect of chemotherapy. This study first explored traditional Chinese medicine treatment effect on long-term survival of lung cancer patients.

This study evaluated whether traditional Chinese medicine combined with conventional cancer treatment improved overall survival of lung cancer patients. We had conducted a retrospective cohort study on 111,564 newly diagnosed lung cancer patients in 2000–2009 from National Health Insurance Program database.

A total of 23,803 (21.31%) patients used traditional Chinese medicine for lung cancer care. 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. 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], compared with patients without traditional Chinese medicine utilization after multivariate adjustment. We also observed a similar significant reduction risk across various subgroups of chronic lung diseases. Qing Zao Jiu Fei Tang was the most effective traditional Chinese medicine agent for mortality reduction both in the entire lung cancer (0.81; 0.72–0.91) and matched populations (0.86; 0.78–0.95).

This study demonstrated adjunctive therapy with traditional Chinese medicine may improve overall survival of lung cancer patients. This study also suggested traditional Chinese medicine may be used as an adjunctive therapy for cancer treatment. These observational findings need being validated by future randomized controlled trials to rule out the possibility of effect due to holistic care.