[Discussion of relationship between quality of life and clinical effect assessment of malignant tumor treated with traditional Chinese medicine].
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.
Que
Hua-Fa
HF
Shanghai Municipal Clinical Medicine Center for Chinese Traditional Surgery, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 200032, China. quehuafa@hotmail.com
Chen
Hong-Feng
HF
Xu
Jie-Nan
JN
Liu
Sheng
S
Lu
De-Ming
DM
Tang
Han-Jun
HJ
D000972:Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic / Q000627:therapeutic use; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy*; D008517:Phytotherapy; D011788:Quality of Life; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D000972:Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal