Lung Cancer Survival With Herbal Medicine and Vitamins in a Whole-Systems Approach

Abstract

Complementary and alternative medicines are used by up to 48% of lung cancer patients but have seen little formal assessment of survival efficacy. In this 10-year retrospective survival study, the authors investigated Pan-Asian medicine + vitamins (PAM+V) therapy in a consecutive case series of all non-small-cell lung cancer patients (n = 239) presenting at a San Francisco Bay Area Chinese medicine center (Pine Street Clinic). They compared short-term treatment lasting the duration of chemotherapy/radiotherapy with long-term therapy continuing beyond conventional therapy. They also compared PAM+V plus conventional therapy with conventional therapy alone, using concurrent controls from the Kaiser Permanente Northern California and California Cancer Registries. They adjusted for confounding with Kaplan-Meier, Cox regression, and newer methods - propensity score and marginal structural models (MSMs), which when analyzing data from observational studies or clinical practice records can provide results comparable with randomized trials. Long-term use of PAM+V beyond completion of chemotherapy reduced stage IIIB deaths by 83% and stage IV by 72% compared with short-term use only for the duration of chemotherapy. Long-term PAM+V combined with conventional therapy reduced stage IIIA deaths by 46%, stage IIIB by 62%, and stage IV by 69% compared with conventional therapy alone. Survival rates for stage IV patients treated with PAM+V were 82% at 1 year, 68% at 2 years, and 14% at 5 years. PAM+V combined with conventional therapy improved survival in stages IIIA, IIIB, and IV, compared with conventional therapy alone. Prospective trials using PAM+V with conventional therapy for lung cancer patients are justified.

In Metastatic Non-small cell Lung Cancer Platinum-Based Treated Patients, Herbal Treatment Improves the Quality of Life. A Prospective Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial

“…Moreover, this improvement is not due to treatment delay (Guo et al, 2011a). Comparable results were obtained in independent studies in the United States on metastatic pulmonary and colorectal cancer (McCulloch et al, 2011a,b). The improved survival rates obtained in these three independent studies on patients with metastatic cancer from different organs are remarkably similar (Baak et al, 2011).…”

Caffeic Acid Phenethyl Ester and Caffeamide Derivatives Suppress Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Cells

“…In other words, preventing metastatic colonization could improve the survival rate of oral cancer patients, which may benefit clinical treatment [ 42 ].In fact, 26G and 36M inhibited malignant phenotypes, including cell migration, colony formation, and angiogenesis ( Figure 5 ). Longitudinal clinical investigations showed that combined supplementation of herbal medicines with vitamin E efficiency reduced the mortality rate in lung cancer patients in 5 years [ 43 , 44 ]. Therefore, supplements containing bioactive herbal compounds may provide more efficient therapies for patients with cancer.…”

Can We Demonstrate That Breast Cancer “Integrative Oncology” Is Effective? A Methodology to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Integrative Oncology Offered in Community Clinics

“…McCulloch et al 21,22,23 have shown improved survival curves for stage I–IV lung and colon cancer patients receiving IO care at Pine Street Clinic located in the San Francisco Bay area. In 2006, this group presented retrospective outcomes data of survival in 239 non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) patients following treatment with an adjunctive natural medicine protocol that included science-based herbal and nutraceutical treatments similar to those utilized by other naturopathic and Chinese medicine IO physicians.…”