ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To evaluate the efficacy of HangAm-Plus (HAP) on stage IV metastatic gastric cancer by analyzing the treated patients' overall survival outcome.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Following the study eligibility, overall survival and one year survival rate of 44 stage IV metastatic gastric cancer patients who visited East-West Cancer Center (EWCC) were analyzed. The study consisted of two arms: HAP treatment only (n=18) and combined treatment of concurrent conventional chemotherapy and HAP (n=26). Patient characteristics by gender, age, surgical intervention, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) score, treatment duration (< 4 weeks or [Symbol: see text]4 weeks), and lines of the chemotherapy received were assessed. Treatment related side effects were also assessed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The median survival of combined group was longer (10.0 months) than that of HAP group (5.1 months). One-year survival rate of combined treatment group and HAP group was 38.5%±9.5% and 33.3%±11.1%, respectively (P>0.05). One-year survival rate of those received more and less than 4-week treatment was 57.1%±18.7% and 8.3%±8.0%, respectively (P=0.001).</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The study supports the safety and potential efficacy of HAP treatment in prevention of chemo-related side effects for stage IV metastatic gastric cancer treated with conventional chemotherapy. Further studies are needed to investigate and confirm the results before applying the treatment in clinical settings.</p>
Subject(s)
Adult , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Young Adult , Drugs, Chinese Herbal , Therapeutic Uses , Neoplasm Metastasis , Neoplasm Staging , Stomach Neoplasms , Drug Therapy , Pathology , Survival AnalysisABSTRACT
Cancer is the number one cause of death in Korea with annual mortalities of 69 780. Research suggests one in every four Koreans will end up getting cancer at some point in their life time. With these persistent threats, strive for cancer cure is continued. Ten years of Korea's oriental medicine herbal research on cancer have been reviewed. Researches between the years of 2000 and 2010 are analyzed in terms of their published year, study types, tested subjects, testing measures, cancer types, and institutions. In the past ten years, cancer researches have blossomed from null to full in Korean peninsula, and further development is much anticipated in the next ten years to come.