TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of Chinese herbal medicine on survival, relapse and metastasis in women with breast cancer : a systematic review of randomized controlled trial
AU - Li, Xun
AU - Zhu, Xiaoshu
AU - Ren, Jun
AU - Zhou, Xian
AU - Liu, Jianping
AU - Bensoussan, Alan
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Purpose: Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is widely applied in China for breast cancer, while survival, relapse and metastasis are important direct outcomes. We aim to evaluate the impact of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) in survival, relapse and metastasis in female breast cancer patients. Methods: We conducted literature searching in Chinese and English databases from the inception to November 2012, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were selected and data extracted by two authors independently. Papers were reviewed systematically and data were analyzed using Cochrane software Revman 5.1.7. Results: A total of 19 RCTs (involving 2473 women) were included (all in Chinese). The methodological quality resulted in a high risk of bias. All the RCTs involved different Chinese herbal formulas, and we were only able to explore the tendency to effectiveness by pooling similar studies using integrated Chinese and Western medicine treatments. Two studies of CHM+chemoradiotherapy vs chemoradiotherapy showed advantage in the 5-year survival rate of the patients receiving CHM (RR=1.23, 95%, CI:1.02-1.48), while other studies (CHM+chemotherapy vs chemotherapy, 2 trials; CHM+chemoradiaotherapy vs chemoradiotherapy, 3 trials; CHM+chemoradiaotherapy+endocrine vs chemoradiaotherapy+endocrine, 2 trials; CHM vs chemotherapy, 2 trials) did not show significant difference in 3/4/5 year survival rates. Seven studies reported lower recurrence/metastases rates in the CHM treatment groups although the time measured to outcome varied from 1 to 5 years. Only one study reported there were no adverse events, while the rest did not report this information. Conclusion: The benefit of adding CHM to conventional treatments for improving survival, relapse and metastases in women with breast cancer remains unclear, and due to the limited number and methodological quality of studies, more rigorous RCTs are warranted.
AB - Purpose: Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is widely applied in China for breast cancer, while survival, relapse and metastasis are important direct outcomes. We aim to evaluate the impact of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) in survival, relapse and metastasis in female breast cancer patients. Methods: We conducted literature searching in Chinese and English databases from the inception to November 2012, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were selected and data extracted by two authors independently. Papers were reviewed systematically and data were analyzed using Cochrane software Revman 5.1.7. Results: A total of 19 RCTs (involving 2473 women) were included (all in Chinese). The methodological quality resulted in a high risk of bias. All the RCTs involved different Chinese herbal formulas, and we were only able to explore the tendency to effectiveness by pooling similar studies using integrated Chinese and Western medicine treatments. Two studies of CHM+chemoradiotherapy vs chemoradiotherapy showed advantage in the 5-year survival rate of the patients receiving CHM (RR=1.23, 95%, CI:1.02-1.48), while other studies (CHM+chemotherapy vs chemotherapy, 2 trials; CHM+chemoradiaotherapy vs chemoradiotherapy, 3 trials; CHM+chemoradiaotherapy+endocrine vs chemoradiaotherapy+endocrine, 2 trials; CHM vs chemotherapy, 2 trials) did not show significant difference in 3/4/5 year survival rates. Seven studies reported lower recurrence/metastases rates in the CHM treatment groups although the time measured to outcome varied from 1 to 5 years. Only one study reported there were no adverse events, while the rest did not report this information. Conclusion: The benefit of adding CHM to conventional treatments for improving survival, relapse and metastases in women with breast cancer remains unclear, and due to the limited number and methodological quality of studies, more rigorous RCTs are warranted.
KW - breast
KW - cancer
KW - medicine, Chinese
KW - medicine, herbal
UR - https://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:55156
M3 - Article
SN - 1075-5535
VL - 20
SP - A62-A62
JO - The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine
JF - The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine
IS - 5
ER -
