In addition to the three major encounters in history over the past hundred years, major and minor arguments have occurred from time to time, and in daily life, the debate on the advantages and disadvantages of cancer treatment methods is most likely to trigger a “firefight” between fans of Chinese medicine and Western medicine. Not long ago, Tang Zhaoyou, China’s most famous liver cancer expert and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, published a new book, “Academician’s New Perspective on Cancer: Eliminating and Transforming at the Same Time” at the age of 81. This famous surgeon, whose English-language monograph “Subclinical Liver Cancer” was hailed by the international medical community as a landmark work in the field of liver cancer, is no different from a heavenly book to most people; now, academician Tang “popularizes” his book to the general public in the most popular style. Now, Academician Tang “popularizes” his “45 Years of Reflections on Cancer” to the general public in the most popular style, so that lay readers can read it without losing academic knowledge and feel that it is easy to read and understand. What attracts special attention is that this authoritative Western doctor deeply reflects on Western medicine’s anti-cancer techniques based on the strategy of “tumor elimination”, advocates the discovery of treasures from Chinese medicine, and encourages doctors and patients to take the Chinese anti-cancer path of “elimination and transformation at the same time”. The “new” TCM perspective of authoritative western doctors soon attracted attention from all sides. The Chinese medicine perspective of authoritative Western doctors The Hanging Temple in Shanxi, the Western Summer Tombs, and the Wooden Pagoda in Yingxian County, academician Tang Zhaoyou pointed to three landscape photos in another of his new works, “Tang Zhaoyou’s Photographic Reflections,” and told reporters: these three ancient architectural gems often trigger my nostalgic thoughts. In ancient China, although there was no complete and systematic architectural theory to guide them, they still built amazing thousand-year-old classics with experience. “Chinese medicine is similar to this, starting from a large number of practices, constantly revised and tested for thousands of years, which are valuable treasures and profound inspirations left to our descendants by our ancestors.” Academician Tang said. As a Western doctor, he has been using Chinese medicine for more than 40 years in his clinical career, and has been summarizing the gains and losses in its application, such as the use of both attacking and supplementing the “anti-consumption and softening formula” and the Six Flavored Dihuang Wan tonic method. However, because no scientific empirical studies have been conducted, Professor Tang has never been mentioned in formal papers or international conferences. In the past 20 years, his main research focus has been on the metastasis and recurrence of liver cancer, which is contrary to the clinical research that made him “famous” – the discovery and treatment of early stage liver cancer, commonly known as “small liver cancer”. This seems to be contrary to the clinical research that made him “famous” – the discovery and treatment of early stage liver cancer, commonly known as “small liver cancer”. In this regard, academician Tang told the reporter that this is because a lot of clinical observation and research has confirmed that even if the cancer is still a small tumor when it is detected, there may still be circulating cancer cells in the patient’s blood, and it is difficult to achieve 100% elimination of cancer cells with the current conventional Western medical treatment. This result is a bit frustrating for Tang, who advocates “early detection and early cure” of cancer. Although each type of cancer has its own “personality”, the “commonalities” are the main ones, such as uncontrolled self-replication, resistance to cell death, evasion of growth inhibitory factors and activation of invasion and metastasis, said Tang. Undoubtedly, the war against cancer based on the strategy of “tumor eradication” has made definite progress in the past hundred years, but there is still a long way to go before “cancer is conquered”. Among the common cancers, according to the statistics of cancer population, there are still very few types of cancer with 5-year survival rate over 50%. Although new therapies aiming at tumor eradication are emerging and expanding the benefits to cancer patients, many of them are approaching their high limit of efficacy, and metastasis and recurrence after treatment are still bottlenecks to further improve the efficacy. “At the age of 75, he and his team started the first “Western-style” research project on Chinese medicine, confirming from an experimental study on nude mice with liver cancer in the Netherlands that the “Song You Drink” containing five Chinese herbs He and his team confirmed from the experimental study of nude mice with liver cancer in the Netherlands that “Song You Drink” containing five Chinese herbs could induce apoptosis and prolong the survival of the animals, and discovered some molecular mechanisms for it. This research result has been published in the International Journal of Cancer. “Traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine are like two sides of the same coin that can complement each other. The prospect of combining Chinese and Western medicine to treat cancer is very promising.” Professor Tang said that in cancer treatment, Chinese medicine has many ideas that have been proven by Western medicine, such as “clearing heat and detoxifying”, and there is increasing evidence in modern medicine that cancer is closely related to inflammation, and anti-inflammatory drugs (such as aspirin) have been proven to help cure cancer. Tang summarized the differences between Chinese and Western medicine in ten major areas, including treatment goals, principles, strategies, approaches and efficacy evaluation. According to him, Western medicine attaches more importance to microscopic and localization, while Chinese medicine attaches more importance to macroscopic and overall; Western medicine attaches more importance to seeing tumors, while Chinese medicine attaches more importance to seeing tumor patients; Western medicine focuses on eliminating the causes of disease, while Chinese medicine focuses on restoring balance; Western medicine often blocks and kills, while Chinese medicine often dredges; Western medicine focuses on eliminating tumors, while Chinese medicine may be longer in transforming tumors and transforming the organism; Western medicine often uses a single drug, one side of a disease, while Chinese medicine often uses multiple prescriptions, and often treats tumors with evidence. Western medicine often uses single medicine and one side of one disease, while Chinese medicine often uses compound prescriptions and discriminative evidence, and often treats the same disease differently or different diseases together; Western medicine focuses on tumor size. Western medicine focuses on the size of tumor and often balances complete remission and partial remission, while TCM focuses on symptoms, quality of survival and survival period; Western medicine basically treats cancer as an acute disease and strives for a quick solution, while TCM basically treats cancer as a chronic disease and emphasizes long-term efficacy; Western medicine attaches importance to the mechanism to application at the current stage, while TCM traditionally emphasizes practical results and forms a unique TCM theory based on repeated practice; Western medicine is stronger in eliminating tumors and has a more powerful approach. Western medicine has stronger power and more methods in eliminating tumors, while TCM may have advantages in transforming the organism and residual cancer. These differences make it promising for Chinese and Western medicine to complement each other’s strengths and join hands to conquer cancer. In fact, Western doctors who are fully concerned about the role of TCM in the fight against cancer are far more than just academician Tang. Arsenic trioxide is the main ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine arsenic. In the 1970s, doctors from the Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Department of Hematology of the First Hospital of Harbin Medical University creatively applied arsenic trioxide to patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia (M3 type), and later expanded it to relapsed M3 type cases treated with retinoic acid, and its complete remission rate broke through more than 90%. On the basis of this clinical report, Chen Zhu, now Minister of Health, and his team revealed for the first time the mechanism of apoptosis induced by arsenic trioxide in promyelocytic leukemia cells at the molecular biological and genetic levels. Since then, scholars around the world have begun to introduce arsenic into the research field of various tumors such as liver cancer and lymphoma, achieving one scientific achievement after another. Regarding the short story mentioned by Academician Tang Zhaoyou in his book: his son, wife and mother were cured of acute appendicitis and never recurred using only acupuncture in the 1950s, 1970s and this century, respectively, Qin Yuetnong said it is not of promotional significance: “There is an element of luck in it.” Qin Yuenong told reporters that according to statistics from several hospitals in Shanghai on 10,000 cases of acute appendicitis, the success rate of conservative treatment with herbal or proprietary Chinese medicine for anti-inflammation is up to 80 percent, however, the remaining 20 percent where conservative treatment is ineffective usually escalates to appendiceal perforation developing into peritonitis. “Especially with conservative treatment with acupuncture, the delay leads to escalation of the disease, which is more than worth the loss. And it’s important to note that of those 80 percent of patients who succeed with conservative therapy, 3/4 of them relapse within a year.” Therefore, according to Qin Yuenong, in the PK between conservative Chinese medicine treatments such as acupuncture and moxibustion and Western medicine treatments such as appendectomy, the latter stands out because of its high safety factor and low risk. “This also does not have the problem of ‘praising the West and devaluing the Chinese’.” Qin Yuenong said that Western medicine is obviously more direct and effective in killing solid cancer through surgical resection and other methods, but chemotherapy and radiotherapy may cause great harm to the patient’s organism. “At this time, the shining presence of TCM is a blessing in disguise: TCM improves the patient’s own immunity by ‘helping the righteous’, which not only reduces pain but also lowers the recurrence rate.”