1.What is the specific role of Chinese medicine in tumor treatment? TCM treatment of tumor takes the guiding idea of supporting the righteousness and eliminating the evil, and improves the body’s righteousness as the basis. By improving and enhancing the body’s own inherent anti-cancer ability and giving full play to the role of traditional Chinese medicine, it can improve the efficacy or reduce the toxicity and increase the effectiveness, which can improve the symptoms, improve the quality of survival and prolong the survival period. So far, according to the objective scientific evidence, TCM treatment for tumor is mainly in several aspects: First, after the patient has undergone surgery, the use of TCM can indeed make the patient’s body recover better and more rapidly. Because surgery has damaged the body, especially causing deficiency of qi and blood, and TCM has certain advantages in this regard, which can make the body recover more quickly. Secondly, TCM can reduce the recurrence and metastasis of tumors, and there is a lot of data to confirm this conclusion in the past and in the future. Thirdly, Chinese herbal medicine can control radiotherapy, because the side effects of radiotherapy are very great, many patients have good effect of radiotherapy, but it is often difficult for patients to accept because of toxic side effects. As a simple example, there are many elderly people who are not in good health and after one stage of chemotherapy, they feel weak and do not want to do it anymore, so adding Chinese herbal medicine to them at this time may help them finish chemotherapy. The side effect of chemotherapy is to weaken the spleen and stomach, while Chinese herbal medicine at this time is to support the righteousness and help the patient to regulate the spleen and stomach, replenish the qi and blood, so that the patient can bear the chemotherapy. The same goes for radiotherapy. Besides the damage to the body, the biggest headache is the inflammation of radiation and fibrosis of radiation, which can sometimes even be life-threatening. Fourthly, for some patients with advanced stage or lesions not suitable for surgery and radiotherapy, taking TCM mainly aims to control tumor growth, improve quality of life and prolong survival time, so TCM has different roles in different stages of tumor treatment. 2.How does TCM treat tumor? Chinese medicine can be used in different stages of tumor treatment, but the methods and ideas applied in different stages of tumor treatment are different. If the patient has already undergone radiotherapy or surgery, which is more damaging to his body, the purpose of applying Chinese medicine at this time is to improve the effect of radiotherapy and the effect after surgery, so usually the main focus should be on supporting the righteousness. If the patient has really reached an advanced stage or reached a stage where surgery or radiotherapy cannot be used, then we will add some anti-cancer, blood invigorating, stasis breaking and stagnation eliminating herbs to control the growth of the tumor, so the method of using herbs is different at different stages. For tumor patients who are particularly old, if they can be removed by surgery and their body can bear it, surgery can be considered. If the tumor cannot be removed by surgery and cannot be completely controlled by radiotherapy, you should consider using traditional Chinese medicine alone to treat the tumor. According to some international experience, for tumor patients aged 75 or 80 years old and above, they even consider not to treat them, in fact, they are afraid of hurting their bodies too much and the loss will not be worth it in the end. 3.What are the main means of Chinese medicine for tumor treatment? (1) One is Chinese medicine injections. These injections have different effects, some are for tumor control, some are for assisting the body and improving the immune function of the body, and the combined application is more effective. (2) One kind of Chinese patent medicine, the state has approved a large number of Chinese patent medicines that have inhibiting effect on tumor or are helpful in treating tumor through new drug research and development, including those with blood production and those that reduce the toxic side effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. (3) Tonics, taking tonics is the main way to treat tumors in TCM. In fact, soup medicine is the most used in clinical practice because the characteristic of TCM is to use medicine according to each person’s different symptoms to achieve different effects. Although the causes of the same disease may be different, although different diseases may be treated in the same way in TCM, so the method of TCM is dialectical, and the most important one is tonics. In addition, there are acupuncture therapy (including foot bath and external application), emotional therapy, medicinal food therapy and rehabilitation exercise, etc. 4.What are the advantages of Chinese medicine in treating tumor? For example, if lung cancer can be operated, surgery should be the first choice; when it cannot be operated and needs radiotherapy, it may be better to add Chinese medicine as an auxiliary treatment and choose the combination of Chinese and Western medicine. Patients who cannot undergo radiotherapy or chemotherapy should use Chinese herbal medicine. If the tumor cannot be completely eliminated, but the tumor can be stabilized after chemotherapy reaches a certain stage, we will try to extend the survival time with Chinese medicine, and we advocate better survival with tumor and longer survival time, so as to achieve better control. When the tumor develops and grows up again, or when the malignancy is very high and the value-added differentiation is very fast, we suggest to carry out traditional Chinese medicine treatment after radiotherapy and chemotherapy. We believe that Chinese medicine can be used after surgery, during and after radiotherapy, which is more effective than not. This can help patients inhibit some cancer cells produced in the early stage and can reduce some chances of recurrence and metastasis after surgery. It can control the tumor redevelopment, but the Chinese medicine used after surgery, during radiotherapy and after the end is different. The overall idea of combining Chinese and Western medicine in the treatment of tumors is to give patients a better quality of survival. Nowadays, foreign viewpoints do not treat cancer as a very acute aggressive and lethal disease, but believe that cancer is also a chronic disease and we should treat it actively, but slow down and treat it timely according to the patient’s condition, and sensible treatment is the most important. As for our TCM, we emphasize more on treating tumor as a chronic disease and can use Chinese medicine to maintain treatment. 5.Is there any fixed and written prescription for tumor treatment in TCM? Do prescriptions work? The difference between TCM and Western medicine is that TCM emphasizes on evidence-based treatment, such as benefiting Qi, invigorating blood, or clearing heat, detoxifying toxins, etc. There is no fixed formula, because the treatment methods of TCM for the same disease may be different, and the treatment methods for different diseases may be the same, which is a treatment measure for different conditions arising from each individual’s constitution. . Nowadays, there are some propaganda in the society, such as Chinese medicine has various methods to treat cancer, which seems very miraculous, and many tumor patients, would like to try them out. Our view is that if someone says he can guarantee to cure tumor, he must be a liar, because no tumor can be guaranteed to be cured. If he says the cure rate of tumor is 70%, 80% or 90%, we think he is still a liar, because all means we have so far cannot reach such a high level for any tumor. Patients and family members must be cautious about where they should go for tumor treatment. There are often patients who say, “My tumor cannot be cured, but others say it can be cured, so I won’t live anyway, so let’s give it a try”. We have seen too many such examples and need to warn patients that your life is short and will be even shorter if not treated properly, so it is not worth trying and you do not have time to try. All kinds of prescriptions, including maintenance products and drugs for tumor treatment, which are considered effective in the society, must be retested in our national medical center of Chinese medicine and tumor, key research laboratories and tertiary laboratories, and only after good results can we consider to promote their use, so we hope that we should not easily try the partial and secret prescriptions. We should go step by step according to the situation that we actually have the most evidence and produce the best results. More importantly, as you go to try different treatments, it is entirely possible to delay the disease because of its progression, and it is much harder to treat the disease after it has progressed than when it has not. If you want to treat tumor by Chinese medicine, you should go to tertiary hospitals with experience in treating tumor, especially the Chinese medicine department of cancer hospitals and the oncology department of Chinese medicine hospitals, and I hope you will consider carefully some places that are especially fond of advertising and propaganda. 6.Does the treatment of tumor have to use the more toxic Chinese medicine? Chinese medicine mainly includes two aspects in the treatment of tumor, one is the Chinese medicine to support the righteousness and the other is the Chinese medicine to attack the tumor, and most of the Chinese medicines that can have certain killing effect on tumor have certain toxicity. How to choose the more toxic herbal medicines is mainly based on several aspects. First, it is not that the more toxic herbal medicines are the better the treatment effect; it is not that the more toxic medicines are used, the more they are stacked up to control the tumor. For example, if the patient is in good health, more anti-tumor drugs can be used. If the patient’s health is very weak, he should use drugs that support the righteousness and use less or no anti-tumor drugs. Therefore, the selection of anti-tumor herbs is different in different stages. Secondly, nowadays, more and more attention is paid to the toxicity of traditional Chinese medicines. We cannot ignore the toxicity of such traditional Chinese medicines to cause other harm to patients such as liver and kidney function damage just for the sake of anti-tumor, so we must pay attention when choosing the medicine to use. 7. Do tumor patients need to avoid eating? In general, the daily taboos of patients in the course of taking tonics should be determined according to the specific conditions of the patients. Different doctors may interpret these statements differently, and indeed some Chinese medicine practitioners have more precautions. Generally speaking, we believe that it is most important for tumor patients to maintain a balanced absorption of nutrients and not to affect the absorption of some essential nutrients because of the taboo. The principles of taboo for tumor patients are as follows: ①There is a theoretical basis for taboo, and there are certain principles that cannot be implemented blindly. ②There is no nonsense in the taboo, but it should not be extended arbitrarily with superstitious color. ③There are different kinds of taboos depending on the treatment, and they should be chosen according to the different diseases and treatment stages of the patients. The taboo is also related to the treatment effect of the disease. The diet of tumor patients should be in accordance with the four seasons and the laws of nature. In spring and summer, the Yang energy is strong and everything is full of vitality, so they should try to eat less warm and dry food, such as less mutton; in autumn, the climate is dry and everything is slaughtered, so patients often have dry mouth and nostril bleeding, so they should eat less spicy food and more fruits with more water; in winter, it is cold, so they should eat less sweet and cold food to hurt the stomach, and it is appropriate to eat warm and hot products. Overall, stimulating things to eat as little as possible. There are some diseases, or in different stages of treatment may have some choices for some foods, for example, some patients will have insufficient stomach yin, dry mouth, nausea, red tongue with less coating after radiotherapy and chemotherapy, then patients should nourish yin and clear heat, and forbid eating spicy and hot things (mutton, dog meat). There are many misunderstandings about the diet of tumor patients, and there are many references in the society, such as not to eat chicken, not to eat crab, or not to eat any meat, only vegetarian food, etc. The most typical one is the prohibition of eating “hairy food”. The so-called “hair” refers to the food that can cause the recurrence of disease or aggravation of new diseases, mostly refers to bean sprouts, leeks, alfalfa, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, chicken, goose, dog meat, beef, seafood, etc.. In fact, this statement is wrong, hairy food is only an ancient Chinese folk saying, the scientific nature of this statement is still to be proved, maybe for some allergic diseases or some sores, it has some significance, but whether it can cause the recurrence of tumor, there is still a lack of sufficient evidence, at least so far there is no clear case of tumor recurrence caused by eating hairy food. On the contrary, some so-called “hair products” are rich in protein, vitamins and minerals, which are beneficial to the recovery of tumor patients when consumed in moderation, such as chicken, which is rich in high quality protein and is very beneficial to the recovery of certain tumor patients who consume a lot of protein. 8.Can tumor patients take tonic medicine? Some people say: tumor patients can’t take tonic medicine, and taking tonic medicine will promote the growth of tumor and make it easy for recurrence and metastasis. This statement is based on insufficient evidence. On the contrary, scientists have found in clinical and animal experiments that many tonic medicines have the effect of enhancing the immune function of the body and have therapeutic effect on tumor. At present, there are many kinds of supplements in the market, besides ginseng, there are also many compound health supplements. Some tumor patients are even reluctant to use regular tumor treatment drugs, but prefer to spend several thousand dollars a month to buy Lingzhi and Cordyceps supplements. How to choose tonic? (1) Tonic is only a tonic, not a medicine, and it cannot replace medicine. In fact, some Chinese medicines, including some proprietary medicines, have some tonic effects in themselves, so there is no need to spend a lot of money to buy tonic medicines. In addition, according to your economic situation to decide what kind of tonic to buy, not the more expensive the better, Cordyceps is now very high prices, but also not necessarily the best, do not spend all the money on tonic, not that today eat Cordyceps will not be sick, tomorrow do not eat it will be sick. (2) Should not be a big tonic. Some people drink all kinds of tonic together, or drink 6-10 ginseng royal jelly daily, after taking dry mouth, irritable temperament, not only can not play a good role. Instead, it leads to the opposite effect. Therefore, 1-2 kinds of tonic should be selected appropriately and a small amount should be consumed daily in order to have certain benefits. (3) The application of supplements and health care products should be applied specifically according to different conditions of patients, different treatment stages and his affordability, and it is better to consult a doctor before using them, because some supplements and health care products, unlike drugs, have undergone strict tests and long time observation, and their efficacy has to be further verified, and the efficacy is different with different supplements. 9.How to take care of tumor patients in daily life? Firstly, in terms of diet, TCM believes that the food for tumor patients should be different from that for normal people. The general principle should be to supplement what is lacking, according to the different stages and nutritional status of patients, including how much protein should be supplemented and how much sugar should be supplemented. In addition, anti-cancer foods should not be overemphasized. The so-called anti-cancer food is more accurately called anti-cancer food, that is, to reduce the chance of cancer, which is more beneficial to healthy people and not necessarily suitable for tumor patients. Secondly, in terms of exercise, Chinese medicine believes that various fitness methods, including tai chi and qigong, are helpful to patients. Why? The patient often lies in bed after the disease, more exercise is helpful to him. But it is not advocated to overdo it, such as a walk in the morning. The principles that need to be emphasized are: exercise often, rest often, do not exercise for too long at a time, in between you should pay attention to have rest, and one more, when you exercise, after going home to rest and feel comfortable, such exercise is appropriate. If you want to feel rested, it is too long to do work, so it should be decided according to the different physique of patients. 10.Nowadays, tumor treatment emphasizes standardization, is there any research or progress in Chinese medicine treatment in this area? The standardized treatment for all kinds of tumors being developed by Western medicine is the result of the observation of a large number of cases and the conclusion of large-scale data research. In contrast, the treatment of tumors by TCM is very late in starting and has many difficulties, and there is still a lot of work to be done. For example, it is difficult to get all the experts’ ideas together for the treatment of tumors in TCM. So far, there is a lot of evidence to prove the benefits of TCM in tumor treatment, but the role of TCM is different in each stage of tumor treatment. For example, for non-small cell lung cancer, the conclusion now is that for advanced stage tumors using a combination of Chinese and Western medicine is better than Chinese medicine alone, and also better than Western medicine alone, which is the result of current research. And the standardization of Chinese medicine for tumor treatment is still a very long process, in the next few years our country will gradually have a more standardized treatment plan out.