Journal of integrative medicine
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Chemotherapy in conjunction with traditional Chinese medicine for survival of elderly patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer: protocol for a randomized double-blind controlled trial.
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is considered an important complementary therapy with beneficial effects for cancer patients. Elderly patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are a complex patient group with increasing co-morbidity and shrinking physiological reserve, and may derive substantial benefit from the supportive aspects of TCM. Researchers from Shanghai Longhua Hospital found that qi and yin deficiency is a common syndrome in patients with stage III or IV lung cancer. This project was designed to study the combination of single-agent chemotherapy with TCM methods of benefiting qi and yin in elderly patients with advanced NSCLC. ⋯ Results from this study may provide evidence on the effectiveness, and parameters for the usage of single-agent chemotherapy combined with or without TCM on PFS of elderly patients with NSCLC.