Que Hua-Fa, Chen Hong-Feng, Xu Jie-Nan, Liu Sheng, Lu De-Ming, Tang Han-Jun
Shanghai Municipal Clinical Medicine Center for Chinese Traditional Surgery, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 200032, China.
Zhong Xi Yi Jie He Xue Bao. 2005 Jul;3(4):253-6. doi: 10.3736/jcim20050401.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) therapy is effective in treating malignant tumor. TCM therapy is a multi-way, multi-layer and multi-target integrated treatment characterized by "survival with tumor" and improvement of life quality. An ideal result of the TCM therapy for cancer should be a positive response of the patient with satisfactory quality of life (QOL) and longer survival time. So it is necessary to introduce the QOL, quantification of symptoms and signs and standardization of TCM syndromes to the objective, quantitative and standardized effect assessment of TCM therapy for cancer. A criterion for evaluating the effect of TCM therapy on tumors should be established, which reflects the characteristics and advantages of the TCM therapy, and meets the requirement of the developing effect assessment of modern medicine in cancer treatment. It is suggested that the treatment effect should be the sum of quality adjusted life years (QALYs) (equal to QOL multiplied by time of survival), syndrome remission rate and tumor remission rate. But the proportion of each of the three is variable, which has close relationships with the different tumor stages and corresponding treatments.
