A Systematic Review On The Clinical Efficacy Of Traditional Chinese Medicine As A Complementary Therapy In Treating Cancer Outside China

Objective:Cancer is the leading cause of death in Hong Kong and persecuted lots of people worldwide. Its side effects, including nausea and vomiting, fatigue, pain, alopecia, constipation and immune-suppression are commonly encountered among cancer patients who are treated with conventional therapy, such as surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy. With the unsatisfactory of conventional therapy, cancer sufferers are seeking for alternative treatments associated with the improvement in quality of life, especially as death approaches. A variety of Chinese medicines (such as herbal medicine, acupuncture and tai chi) have been used for managing these adverse effects and the wellbeing over the years.The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicines used as adjunct therapy in cancer care.Methods:Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) researching on cancer were comparing the application of traditional Chinese medicine as an adjunct treatment plus conventional therapy with the use of conventional therapy only. Those RCTs were searched from The Cochrane Library (1999-2013), MEDLINE (1948-2013), EMBASE (1980-2013), AMED (1985-2013), and some relevant Chinese journals were searched. Trial quality was assessed by reviewer. Data were extracted and checked; thereafter presented the majority information in narrative form and performed a limited meta-analyses. Results:There are11relevant trails in the review, involving562participants. However, the methodological designs were in low quality. Within those11 included researches, only6researches mentioned about the usage of randomization and3of them did not described the randomization method or using an improper method. Among all, only2researches used double blinded method and6researches did mention about the dropout rate. However, there was no significant evidence that the application of traditional Chinese medicine could reduce the experiences of nausea&vomiting, fatigue, diarrhea, pain and etc. No evidence supported with a significant change in T-lymphocyte subsets, T-helper cells, and B-lymphocyte cell counts combined the supplementary usage of traditional Chinese medicine. The overall quality of life and the treatment effect were not beneficial compared with non-users.Conclusion:Due to limitations of the studies, there is no vagarious demonstration of benefit on TCM. As an adjunct treatment to conventional therapy, traditional Chinese medicine might able to help with maintain or gain body weight, prolong the life span and reduce the recurrences among cancer patients. It is needed that more high quality randomized controlled studies investigating the effects on traditional Chinese medicine in cancer support care.