Department of Oncology, Guang'anmen Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing 100053, China.
Chin J Integr Med. 2012 Oct;18(10):730-6. doi: 10.1007/s11655-012-1254-0. Epub 2012 Sep 11.
The features and advantages of Chinese medicine (CM) in cancer comprehensive treatment have been in the spotlight of experts both at home and abroad. However, how to evaluate the effect of CM more objectively, scientifically and systematically is still the key problem of clinical trial, and also a limitation to the development and internationalization of CM oncology. The change of tumor response evaluation system in conventional medicine is gradually consistent with the features of CM clinical effect, such as they both focus on a combination of soft endpoints (i.e. quality of life, clinical benefit, etc.) and hard endpoints (i.e. tumor remission rate, time to progress, etc.). Although experts have proposed protocols of CM tumor response evaluation criteria and come to an agreement in general, divergences still exist in the importance, quantification and CM feature of the potential endpoints. Thus, establishing a CM characteristic and wildly accepted tumor response evaluation system is the key to promote internationalization of CM oncology, and also provides a more convenient and scientific platform for CM international cooperation and communication.
中医药（CM）在癌症综合治疗中的特点和优势一直受到国内外专家的关注。然而，如何更客观、科学、系统地评价 CM 的疗效仍然是临床试验的关键问题，也是 CM 肿瘤学发展和国际化的局限性。传统医学中肿瘤反应评估系统的变化逐渐与 CM 临床疗效的特点相一致，例如两者都侧重于软终点（即生活质量、临床获益等）和硬终点（即肿瘤缓解率、进展时间等）的结合。尽管专家们已经提出了 CM 肿瘤反应评估标准的方案，并在总体上达成了一致，但在潜在终点的重要性、量化和 CM 特征方面仍存在分歧。因此，建立 CM 特征和广泛接受的肿瘤反应评估系统是促进 CM 肿瘤学国际化的关键，也为 CM 国际合作和交流提供了更方便、科学的平台。
