Traditional Chinese medicine in the prevention and treatment of cancer disease: A review of the evidence

Abstract

During the past decades, studies have suggested that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) may be effective for the prevention of cancer and cancer-related health problems. For primary prevention one systematic review demonstrated a potential benefit of green tea consumption for cancer prevention especially for gastrointestinal cancers. A meta-analysis involving 4,654 patients with high-grade esophageal epithelial cells hyperplasia found herbal medicines more effective than placebo in preventing esophageal cancer. Another review evaluated herbal medicine for gastric cancer prevention in people with precancerous lesions and showed beneficial effect of Chinese medicine from 3 randomized trials. For secondary and tertiary prevention 21 and 28 randomized trials were identified respectively with the majority of the trials reported positive findings in the alleviation of symptoms of the side effects of treatment, recurrence of disease and metastasis from primary tumour. Although there were beneficial effects from Chinese medicine for prevention of cancer or cancer-related complications, we found significant heterogeneity in the meta-analyses and there were severe limitations due to poor methodological quality of the included studies. Few observational studies were found. Future studies of TCM for the prevention and treatment of cancer need to be more rigorous in study design using existing guidelines such as the CONSORT Statement. More studies should be designed as observational cohort studies to better reflect the nature of TCM treatment modalities. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010.