Abstract:

Lung cancer is one of the malignant tumors with the highest incidence and mortality rates globally. The prognosis of advanced lung cancer is poor, and drug resistance and toxic side effects limit clinical efficacy on it, and new treatment strategies are urgently needed. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) regards lung cancer as “lung accumulation”,which belonging to “general deficiency and local excess”, and the treatment emphasizes strengthening the body and eliminating pathogens. The TCM treatment of lung cancer is divided into three phases: postoperative support and nurturing, TCM combined with chemotherapy to enhance efficacy and reduce toxicity, and prevention of recurrence and metastasis. Based on this, professor Fang Zhihong mentioned that lung cancer was fundamentally characterized as deficiency of both qi and yin, with symptoms of qi stagnation, blood stasis, phlegm coagulation and toxin accumulation. He advocated the ideas of combination of disease differentiation, syndrome differentiation, and stage differentiation during the disease treatment, emphasized strengthening the spleen and stomach, cultivate righteous qi, and eliminating evil toxins. This article presents two case studies demonstrating the effectiveness of individualized staged treatment with TCM. Case 1 (stage Ⅲ B) was treated with TCM to strengthen body and eliminate pathogens after receiving targeted therapy and chemotherapy. The lesion had been stable for nearly 3 years and a total survival time was nearly 6 years; Case 2 (stage Ⅱ A) underwent postoperative TCM-assisted chemotherapy, and the survival time exceeded 8 years, and achieved clinical cure. The therapeutic effect was significant in 2 cases after using TCM methods to tonify qi and nourish yin, clear heat and detoxify, strengthen the spleen and resolve phlegm.

Key words: Non-small cell lung cancer, Traditional Chinese medicine, Staged treatment