Effects of Traditional Chinese Medicine on the survival of patients with stage Ⅰ gastric cancer and high-risk factors:a real-world retrospective study

OBJECTIVE:To investigate the benefits of Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM) therapy for improving the survival of patients with stage I gastric cancer(GC) and high-risk factors in a real-world setting.METHODS:The clinical data of patients who were diagnosed with stage I GC from March 1,2012 to October 31,2020 were collected.Prognostic analysis was performed to explore the high-risk factors that affected the survival of the patients.A Cox multivariate regression model was used to compare the hazard ratios for the mortality risk of patients,especially those with high-risk factors.Kaplan-Meier survival curve and log-rank test were utilized to assess the survival time.RESULTS:Prognostic analysis demonstrated that female sex,tumor invasion into blood vessels,and Ib stage were independent risk factors.The 1-,3-,and 5-year survival rates of the TCM group vs those of the non-TCM group were 100.0% vs 91.0%,97.6% vs 64.5%,and 81.4% vs 55.5%,respectively.A significant difference in median overall survival(m OS) was found between the two groups(χ2 = 7.670,P = 0.006).Subgroup analysis showed that the m OS of female patients and stage Ib patients in the TCM group were longer than those in the non-TCM group (P ≤ 0.001 and 0.001,respectively).CONCLUSIONS:TCM treatment can improve the survival of patients with stage I GC and high-risk factors.