Radiation therapy is an important part of comprehensive oncology treatment, and along with the improvement of long-term survival of oncology patients, the prevention and treatment of post-treatment complications has received increasing attention. more than 50% of abdominal, pelvic and retroperitoneal malignancies may receive radiation therapy during treatment, and acute and chronic radiation enteritis including small bowel inflammation, colitis and proctitis occurring after treatment has turned into a growing medical The problem is growing. Radiation enteritis occurs in approximately 50% of patients who receive abdominal radiation therapy, while approximately 20-25% of patients will progress to chronic small bowel and colitis, and this percentage may be underestimated because some patients who develop symptoms after radiation therapy do not seek medical consultation. Radiation enteritis is clinically manifested by recurrent, intractable abdominal pain, diarrhea, urgency, anal cramps, and mucus and blood stools, which causes great pain to patients and limits the implementation of some radiation doses and subsequent treatments, affecting the quality of life and treatment efficacy of oncology patients. The treatment for this disease is extremely tricky.
In current clinical work, western medical treatment methods are mainly symptomatic, taking glutamine to nourish the intestinal wall, symptomatic antidiarrheal, hemostatic and analgesic treatments, which are not effective, and most of the treatments are difficult to maintain for a long time with recurrent symptoms. Surgeons remain very cautious when considering surgical intervention due to the high rate of postoperative complications and surgical mortality. Surgery as a treatment route for radiation enteritis remains limited to acute conditions such as intestinal obstruction, intestinal perforation, and intestinal bleeding due to radiation enteritis. Chinese medicine, with its emphasis on evidence-based and individualized treatment, has certain advantages and has achieved significant efficacy.
According to Chinese medicine, radiation is a fire-heat evil poison, which is hot in nature and tends to burn the yin fluid and deplete the qi and injure the fluid. At the same time, the walls of microvascular vessels in the radiation field swell after radiotherapy, and fibrosis occurs later, resulting in narrowing of the vessel walls, poor blood supply to the distal parts, and blood stasis. The clinical manifestations of radiation enteritis belong to the category of “diarrhea” and “abdominal pain” in Chinese medicine, and the pathogenesis is always a combination of deficiency and deficiency. There is a deficiency of the tumor’s vital energy, and at the same time, there is also the reality of cancer toxicity. The common clinical symptoms are qi stagnation and blood stasis, damp-heat trapping the spleen, spleen and stomach qi deficiency and kidney yang deficiency.
For example, the use of Ge Gen Scutellaria Tang, Bai Tou Weng Tang, and Bai Qin Tang with additional flavor has resulted in better efficacy and clinical cure time than western medicine treatment. Other authors followed the principle of identification and applied external treatment with Chinese herbal medicine mainly by enema, which was mostly effective in improving local symptoms.
In radiation enteritis, the combination of Chinese and Western medicine has advantages, but prevention is better than cure, and the advancement of radiotherapy technology and the application of comprehensive protective measures are also of great significance in the prevention and treatment of radiation enteritis.