Wang YK, Zhu RW, Gao ZP, Tao Y. Quality of life and survival analyses of breast cancer cases treated with integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine. World J Clin Cases 2024; 12(20): 4074-4081 [PMID: 39015919 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v12.i20.4074]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Yu-Kun Wang, MM, Doctor, Thyroid and Breast Surgery Department, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No. 89-9 Dongge Road, Qingxiu District, Nanning 530000, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. wangyk2023666@126.com
Research Domain of This Article
Integrative & Complementary Medicine
Article-Type of This Article
Retrospective Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Cases. Jul 16, 2024; 12(20): 4074-4081 Published online Jul 16, 2024. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v12.i20.4074
Quality of life and survival analyses of breast cancer cases treated with integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine
Yu-Kun Wang, Rong-Wei Zhu, Zhi-Peng Gao, Yi Tao
Yu-Kun Wang, Thyroid and Breast Surgery Department, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nanning 530000, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China
Rong-Wei Zhu, Zhi-Peng Gao, Yi Tao, Clinical Integration of Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanning 530000, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China
Co-first authors: Yu-Kun Wang and Rong-Wei Zhu.
Author contributions: Wang YK and Zhu RW contributed equally to this work and are co-first authors; Wang YK and Zhu RW designed the research and wrote the first manuscript; Wang YK, Zhu RW, Gao ZP and Tao Y contributed to conceiving the research and analyzing data; Wang YK and Zhu RW conducted the analysis and provided guidance for the research; all authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethic Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because the analysis used anonymous clinical data that were obtained after each patient agreed to treatment by written consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: All data and materials are available from the corresponding author.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yu-Kun Wang, MM, Doctor, Thyroid and Breast Surgery Department, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No. 89-9 Dongge Road, Qingxiu District, Nanning 530000, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. wangyk2023666@126.com
Received: February 22, 2024 Revised: April 19, 2024 Accepted: April 23, 2024 Published online: July 16, 2024 Processing time: 130 Days and 4.2 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Breast cancer (BC) is the second leading cause of tumor-related mortality after lung cancer. Chemotherapy resistance remains a major challenge to progress in BC treatment, warranting further exploration of feasible and effective alternative therapies.
AIM
To analyzed the quality of life (QoL) and survival of patients with BC treated with integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine (TCM-WM).
METHODS
This study included 226 patients with BC admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine between February 2018 and February 2023, including 100 who received conventional Western medicine treatment (control group) and 126 who received TCM-WM treatment (research group). The total effective rate, side effects (alopecia, nausea and vomiting, hepatorenal toxicity, and myelosuppression), QoL assessed using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Core Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30), 1-year overall survival (OS), recurrence and metastasis rates, and serum inflammatory factors [interleukin (IL)-6, IL-10, and tumor necrosis factor alpha] were comparatively analyzed.
RESULTS
The research group showed statistically better overall efficacy, EORTC QoL-C30 scores, and 1-year OS than the control group, with markedly lower side effects and 1-year recurrence and metastasis rates. Moreover, the posttreatment levels of serum inflammatory in the research group were significantly lower than the baseline and those in the control group.
CONCLUSION
Overall, TCM-WM demonstrated significantly improved therapeutic efficacy while ensuring drug safety in BC, which not only improved patients’ QoL and prolonged survival, but also significantly inhibited the inflammatory response.
Core Tip: This study mainly analyzed the effects of integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine (TCM-WM) on the quality of life (QoL) and survival in breast cancer (BC). Based on the total effective rate, medication side effects, QoL, 1-year overall survival, recurrence and metastasis rates, and serum inflammatory factors, we confirmed that TCM-WM showed significantly enhanced therapeutic efficacy while upholding medication safety, thereby improving QoL and survival and significantly inhibiting the inflammatory response. The findings indicate the potential of TCM-WM as a clinically effective BC treatment that can improve the QoL and prolong the survival of patients.
