Lung cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors in the world. Studies show that the incidence of lung cancer in China is increasing at a rate of about 1 1% every year, and lung cancer is also the leading cause of death among Chinese residents.
With the development of more and more treatment methods, the therapeutic effect of lung cancer has been significantly improved. As a science that has been verified in China for 5,000 years, TCM will naturally not be absent.
Friends often ask, do you want to take Chinese medicine during the treatment of lung cancer, and when should you start taking it?
From the perspective of popular science, the treatment of lung cancer is a process of western medicine and Chinese medicine. Regular treatment of integrated traditional Chinese and western medicine can make lung cancer patients get higher survival rate and better quality of life.
Understanding of lung cancer in traditional Chinese medicine
There is no record of the name "lung cancer" in ancient Chinese medicine books. According to the symptoms and characteristics of lung cancer, it belongs to the categories of lung accumulation, cough, hemoptysis and chest pain in traditional Chinese medicine. However, with the continuous development of traditional Chinese medicine, researchers have a more and more comprehensive understanding of the pathogenesis of lung cancer.
Xu Jingshi, a master of traditional Chinese medicine, believes that the main cause of lung cancer is deficiency of vital qi, especially deficiency of both qi and yin. The lungs are delicate and dirty, and are vulnerable to external diseases. In addition, many lung cancer patients have a long history of smoking. As an exogenous evil, tobacco poison enters lung cancer, which is repeated for a long time, consumes organs and aggravates the condition.
But in clinical treatment, Chinese medicine and western medicine are completely different medical systems. Western medicine pays attention to structure while Chinese medicine pays attention to function. The continuous research and development of western medicine has made rapid progress. There are special NCCN or CSCO guidelines for lung cancer, and all western doctors adopt uniform treatment standards.
However, due to the influence of inheritance and individualization, the development of TCM is not easy to sum up and slow. Every Chinese medicine practitioner has different methods and curative effects in treating lung cancer because of different genetics.
Traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine complement each other.
Concerned about the safety of surgery and the side effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, some patients have raised the question: Can lung cancer only be treated with traditional Chinese medicine?
Give you a clear answer here: no.
At present, surgery is still one of the possible means to radically cure lung cancer, and radiotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy are indispensable treatment means.
However, this does not mean that the treatment of traditional Chinese medicine is worthless. At present, some research results show that some traditional Chinese medicines can act on cancer cells through various channels to achieve the effect of inhibiting the growth and spread of cancer cells; A few clinicians applied Chinese medicine to the treatment of lung cancer, and the results suggested that Chinese medicine treatment might be beneficial to lung cancer patients.
At the national policy level, Chinese medicine is also encouraged. In the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, it is clearly stated that implementing the strategy of healthy China, adhering to the combination of traditional Chinese and western medicine, and inheriting and developing the cause of Chinese medicine are important components of this strategy.
Reasonable TCM syndrome differentiation treatment can reduce the side effects of high-risk recurrent lung cancer and postoperative radiotherapy and chemotherapy for lung cancer, and improve the prognosis.