Is there a role for Chinese medicine in treating tumors?

In the past 30 years, the progress of tumor cure rate has been slow, which includes various reasons such as resistance to chemotherapy drugs, failure of chemotherapy, toxic side effects of chemotherapy drugs are too harmful to human body, the patient is already in advanced stage with multiple metastases when found, the patient is mentally anxious and fearful, not cooperating with necessary nutritional guidance, low immunity, and the body is too weak to accept treatment. Therefore, in recent years, the opinion of international oncology session is that the result of comprehensive treatment is significantly better than single treatment. Multidisciplinary treatment means that multiple disciplines complement each other and work together to strive for the best treatment for patients. Combination of Chinese and Western medicine in the treatment of tumors is a major advantage of China, and the maximum application of modern medicine combined with traditional medicine is the global trend. The following is an example of the holistic treatment of Chinese medicine in intervention of tumor markers. Tumor MakerTM was proposed by herberman at the National Cancer Institute in 1978 and confirmed at the 7th Conference on the Biology of Tumorigenesis in the UK the following year. In the last 30 years, it has become more and more in-depth and complete with the development of biotechnology and tumor pathology. Tumor markers are defined as produced and secreted by tumor cells, or are released as part of the tumor cell structure, which is present within the tumor cells and in the serum and blood. The significance of tumor markers lies in the early diagnosis of tumors, monitoring of recurrence and metastasis, judgment of prognosis, and evaluation of efficacy and other aspects of clinical significance. So how does Chinese medicine interfere with tumor markers? In my clinical work, I deeply appreciate that TCM adheres to the principle of holistic treatment and evidence-based treatment, combining the unique four diagnoses and ginseng of TCM to provide personalized holistic treatment plan, combined with the unique nutritional diet for tumor in Chinese medicine, which affects the tumor microenvironment by improving the overall condition of patients, thus affecting the level of tumor markers. The patient, 56 years old, was found to have advanced colon cancer with multiple metastases in the lung and liver in September 2008. After colon surgery and chemotherapy, he visited the TCM clinic at UFH in early 2009. At that time, the patient was very weak, had difficulty breathing, chest pain, intermittent coughing, anorexia, weight loss to 68 KG, severe diarrhea, and numbness in the extremities with an ant-like sensation. Laboratory tests: carcinoembryonic antigen CEA: 98 ng/ml (normal value ≤5.9ng/ml) AFP: 480 ug/L (normal value 0-25ug/L); since western medicine no longer recommends radiotherapy, the patient has been treated mainly with Chinese herbal medicine since early 2009, together with Chinese nutritional food therapy program and healthy lifestyle guidance. After I understood the patient’s medical history, current medical history and lifestyle habits in detail, I formulated a detailed TCM holistic treatment plan for the patient. The first is a personalized herbal program for holistic treatment. The second is to guide the patient, how to do beneficial exercise, diet and mood management at home. Finally, a TCM food therapy program was developed for the patient to teach him/her how to perform TCM food therapy for health. Thankfully, the patient and family members were very compliant and always treated the disease with a healthy lifestyle and a positive attitude. After 3 months of treatment, the patient’s overall condition was significantly improved and her weight returned to 74KG, and the above symptoms were significantly improved. Repeat tumor markers: carcinoembryonic antigen CEA: 64ng/ml (normal value ≤5.9ng/ml) AFP: 240 ug/L (normal value 0~25ug/L). In April 2010, the above tumor markers were rechecked: carcinoembryonic antigen CEA: 9 ng/ml (normal value ≤ 5.9 ng/ml) AFP: 34 ug/L (normal value 0-25ug/L). ). The tumor markers were rechecked every year at an interval of 3 months, and the results were stable at the above-mentioned levels, and were within the normal range on 4 occasions during the period. The abdominal CT test also showed that the patient’s liver and lung tumors were smaller than before and there were no new metastases. The patient is still working and maintains a healthy lifestyle. The quality of life is very high. Modern research shows that: many natural herbs have clear effects of improving the immunity of the body, complementing the potentiation and reduction of toxicity in chemotherapy, improving the cellular immunity of tumor patients, and obviously improving the survival quality of tumor patients, thus playing a multi-point and multi-organ overall treatment effect. From this patient’s treatment experience, we can easily see that multidisciplinary comprehensive treatment plays a very important role in the road to recovery of tumor patients. It is necessary for patients to build up their confidence, and at the same time, they need to use healthy lifestyle and nutrition to cooperate with Chinese medicine and modern medical treatment, so as to achieve holistic conditioning and multi-point and multi-organ therapeutic effects. We sincerely wish that everyone can benefit from all aspects of traditional medicine and that a healthy lifestyle is a natural remedy for cancer prevention.