化療肺癌患者使用中醫輔助療法（ImmuProp^(TM)）前後自覺健康狀況差異分析

Background: Integration of Chinese and Western medicine in clinical practice can be complement each other dominantly, such as extenuating the side effects of chemotherapy among patients with lung cancer. Therefore, analyze the health status of lung cancer patients treated with combined treatment of western and traditional Chinese medicines is essential.Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the health status and side effects among lung cancer patients treated with combined treatment of traditional Chinese medicine and chemotherapy.Method: This study was a double-blinded experimental design, randomly allocated 28 lung cancer patients treated with chemotherapy at the case hospital during July 2012 and January 2013 to experimental and control groups respectively. Subjects for experimental group were given ImmuProp^(TM) (a supplement made of Chinese herbal medicine) twice a day; whereas, their counterparts received placebo. All the subjects were asked to complete the questionnaires of SF-36 and other information at one, three, and five weeks after they agree to participate in the study. In addition, routine blood samplings were conducted during the visits. Independent and paired t tests and chi-square test were adopted to analyze the differences between and within groups.Results: No significant differences were found between experimental and control groups, in terms of health status; however, significant adverse difference of hair loss was found (p = 0.03). In addition, significant adverse difference of physical function within experimental group was found (week 3 vs. week 5, p = 0.03).Conclusion: The significant adverse differences between and within groups on hair loss and physical function were probably due to the courses and dosage of chemotherapy among the subjects, which was highly related with the stage of cancer. The results of this study provided noteworthy information of treating lung cancer patients with modern and traditional Chinese medicines.