The effect of Supplementing Qi and Nourishing Yin combined with chemotherapy for lung cancer： a meta-analysis

Objective： To evaluate whether herbs of supplementing Qi and nourishing Yin combined with chemotherapy （versus chemotherapy alone） improve survival, increase tumor response, improve performance status or reduce chemotherapy toxicity in patients with lung cancer. Methods： Searching the randomized controlled trials （RCT） studies from the databases （China HowNet database, Wan Fang database, VIP database, Master Thesis and Pubmed） between January 2013 and January 2017. RevMan 5.3 software was used to evaluate the quality of these collected papers. Results： Of 48 potentially relevant publications, 10 randomized studies representing 691 patients met inclusion criteria with 369 cases in the supplementing Qi and nourishing Yin plus Chemotherapy group （Herbs ＋ Chem group） and 322 cases in Chemotherapy group （Chem only group）. There were significant differences between Herbs ＋ Chem group and Chem only group in improving the treatment efficacy and reducing the side effects of chemotherapy （P 〈 0.001 for all）. There were also significant differences between the two groups in tumor response and quality of life （P 〈 0.001 for all）. Conclusion： Herbs of supplementing Qi and nourishing Yin may increase chemotherapy effectiveness, reduce chemotherapy toxicity and improve the quality of life of patients with lung cancer when combined with chemotherapy.

Multi-central Clinical Research into Treating 80 Cases of Chronic Thrombocytopenia with Qi-supplementing and Yin-nourishing Therapy and Western Medicine

Objective: To probe the effects of qi-supplementing and yin-nourishing therapy (blood-increasing decoction and blood generating powder) on chronic thrombocytopenia. Methods: Two hundred patients with chronic thrombocytopenia were randomly divided into control (n=100) and test groups (n = 100) with Amino-polypeptide as a basic treatment for both. Test group patients consumed a blood-increasing decoction and blood-generating powder for 1-3 months. Improvements in platelet counts and TCM syndrome were observed. Results: One hundred and sixty-four (80 in the test group and 84 in the control group) of 189 total participants were treated for 3 months. The total effective rate in improving TCM syndrome was 95.00% in the test group and 79.76% in the control group (P<0.05). There was significant difference (P<0.05) in the accumulated score of TCM syndrome between the two groups treated at different time points. The total effective rate of platelet counts was 86.25% in the test group and 59.52% in the control group (P<0.05). There was a significant difference in platelet counts before and after treatment in the two groups (P<0.05). There was no significant differences in platelet count between the two groups treated for 1-2 months; however, a significant difference was found between the two groups after treatment for 3 months (P<0.05). Conclusions: After a 3-month treatment of chronic thrombocytopenia patients with qi-supplementing and yin-nourishing therapy, TCM syndrome was improved and platelet counts increased with no obvious side effects, and the quality of life of the participants was enhanced with noticeable long-term curative effects.