I've always heard the use of herbs and supplements and alternative therapies can be a potentially dangerous pursuit when combined with cancer treatment. But this may not be entirely true.Think about this:
Using Chinese herbs alone or in conjunction with chemotherapy may help protect a breast cancer patient's bone marrow and immune system. It may also improve the overall quality of life for women, say researchers at the Chinese Cochrane Centre in Chengdu, China.
It is well known that women receiving chemotherapy for breast cancer experience significant short term side effects such as nausea, vomiting, fatigue, inflammation of the gut lining, decreased numbers of red and white blood cells, and decreased numbers of blood platelets. Those is search of some relief may wish to give Chinese medicinal herbs a try.
Researchers say there is conventional evidence indicating that these medicines are safe and effective. Still, "further trials are needed before the effects of traditional Chinese medicines for people with breast cancer can be evaluated with any real confidence," says one professor involved in this area of study.
1. According to a study recently published in the Annals of Oncology, treatment with Chinese herbal medicine may significantly reduce nausea associated with chemotherapy. Researchers from Hong Kong, China, and the University of Birmingham in England conducted a clinical study to evaluate the potential effects of Chinese herbal medicine among patients with early-stage breast or colon cancer who were treated with chemotherapy. Patient outcomes were evaluated according to NCI Common Toxicity Criteria Version 2.
Boosting the drug sensitivity of tumor cells might make it possible to give lower doses of a chemotherapy agent while still achieving an effective response and minimizing side effects. Specifically enhancing the sensitivity of cancer cells to killing by chemotherapy drugs has been a focal point of a number of research scientists.
There have been occasions when an ovarian cancer patient would go to a Chinese herbalist for treatment with some Chinese herbal medicines. They would have a mushy, mixed response, some softening of the tumors, with progression intra-abdominally. Later biopsied masses were found to be quite sensitive to some of the very drugs that were unsuccessful in the first place. Refractory ovarian cancers are generally very refractory. A short time later, complete response. No tumor left in a patient who'd previously had a massive tumor burden and no good prior reponse to anything. Now, the herbal medicine probably didn't do all that much by itself, but what it seemed to do was to chemosensitize the tumor.
While some believe that benefits may seem questionable, the herbal concoctions don't appear to do harm.
http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/
http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/Chemotherapy/tb1/5467
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/connected/2007/04/19/nhealth119.xml
Posted at 11:12PM on Apr 27th 2007 by Gregory D. Pawelski