1, the combination of Chinese and Western medicine, not the same as Chinese medicine plus Western medicine How to combine Chinese and Western medicine? It is not a simple accumulation of Chinese medicine and Western medicine, but an organic, flexible and necessary combination. Before and after surgery, before and after chemotherapy, before and after radiotherapy, early, middle and late stages of cancer, liver and kidney function, etc., different methods of Chinese medicine need to be adopted according to the condition in order to achieve the maximum therapeutic effect, instead of simply adding some anti-cancer Chinese medicine to the Western medicine treatment. For example, for most early stage cancers, surgery has definite curative effect, and patients should be advised to prefer surgery no matter what TCM and Western medicine! One should not go against one’s conscience and ask patients to use herbal medicine and delay the disease. At this time, the purpose of TCM treatment should be to ensure the successful completion of surgery and to ensure that the patient recovers as soon as possible after surgery. 2. Anti-cancer herbal medicines, in fact, do not have too much anti-cancer effect Some herbal medicines, such as white flowered snake’s tongue, half a lotus, half a lotus, iron tree leaves and swelling wind, although experimentally confirmed to have anti-cancer efficacy, do not therefore think that their clinical effect will also be good. This is because clinical tumors are too complex and far from being simulated by simple experimental conditions. Even for chemotherapeutic drugs, the experimental effect is much more powerful than that of Chinese medicine, but the tumors are just as resistant to the drugs in the clinic. TCM is about regulatory treatment and flexible medication, rather than simple anti-cancer treatment. For example, TCM defines cold, heat, deficiency and reality. In terms of cold, there are deficiency cold, actual cold, upper cold, lower cold, internal cold, external cold, mixed cold and heat, external cold and internal heat, lower cold and upper heat, etc. The principle of treatment is: the cold one is warm, the hot one is cold, the deficient one is tonified, and the solid one is diarrhea. Chinese medicine is flexible in dialectic and treatment, not only a few anti-cancer herbs can be effective. 3. Combining Chinese and Western medicine, patients must be familiar with the efficacy of Western medical treatment. The toxic side effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy are mostly familiar to patients because their incidence rate is almost 100%. But how much benefit can radiotherapy and chemotherapy bring to patients, do you know? In fact, radiotherapy and chemotherapy are not effective for most tumors, but because there is no other choice, doctors in western hospitals usually recommend them to patients, who mistakenly believe that they are of great benefit to them. To give some examples, chemotherapy for advanced non-small cell lung cancer, no matter what regimen is taken, will not be more than 30% effective. Even if it is effective and the tumor is controlled, it is very short term, lasting at most 3-6 months, and then the tumor will continue to grow. Many patients mistakenly believe that chemotherapy will control the tumor for a long time, which is not possible. In many cases, the more effective chemotherapy is, the more malignant the tumor is, and the faster the recurrence and metastasis. And chemotherapy cannot be used indefinitely. Chemotherapy is most effective for small cell lung cancer, 80% of the initial treatment is effective, but it will recur and metastasize after 1~3 months of stabilization. If the treatment can prolong the patient’s survival, then it is definitely worth recommending as well. However, many doctors do not tell their patients this, and although radiotherapy controls the tumor, it does not necessarily allow the patient to live longer. For example, a few days ago a patient had surgery to remove a malignant melanoma in the neck, and a doctor at a major hospital recommended that the patient have radiation therapy again. Radiation therapy for cancer seems to be the natural thing to do. But what about the efficacy? International clinical trials have shown that post-operative radiotherapy for stage II-III melanoma does reduce the recurrence rate of the tumor at the surgical site (from 35% to 18%). Unfortunately, while recurrence is reduced, tumor metastasis is not reduced at all! On the contrary, the average survival time of the patient after radiotherapy will be reduced, from 3.9 years to 2.6 years. In that case, does radiotherapy still make sense for this patient? Therefore, the combination of Chinese and Western medicine is not something to be taken lightly and requires familiarity with both TCM and Western medicine. Both cures, not required at the same time, sometimes need to give up one or the other. Patients should always inquire before treatment: will you get long-term benefit? How much benefit? 4. Combining Chinese and Western medicine will not go smoothly and requires continuous exploration The diagnosis and treatment of cancer are complex. Chinese medicine treatment also requires efforts and continuous exploration. Some patients are anxious and want to see the effect of tumor shrinkage in a short time. That is wrong. The purpose of TCM treatment is to gradually control the tumor by regulating yin and yang, improving the internal environment and the body’s immunity, and its short-term efficacy is sometimes not ideal. The way and content of combining Chinese and Western medicine is also different for each patient, which also requires continuous exploration and patient patience and perseverance. In addition, identifying a complex disease like cancer requires not only instrumental testing, but also subjective analysis and close follow-up and awareness over a long period of time. Why is it that patients are often treated better in hospital than in outpatient? Because during hospitalization, doctors and patients have enough time to communicate with each other, and Chinese medicine treatment especially emphasizes doctor-patient communication. Although treatment may sometimes be ineffective, the disease will improve again by timely adjustment of the protocol. It is only after a considerable period of exploration that the protocol is mature enough, the disease is stable enough, and the patient benefits the most.