ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the influence of Chinese medicine ( CM) treatment on life span of middle-late primary hepatic carcinoma (PHC) patients. Results A multicenter retrospective cohort study was carried out in 489 PHC patients at the stages of Ⅱb, Ⅲa and Ⅲb collected from 15 domestic hospitals. With CM treatment as the exposure factor, the enrolled patients were divided into CM group, western medicine (WM) group and the CM-WM combination group. The main outcomes included median survival time (MST) and survival rate, and the effects of CM treatment and minimally invasive therapy on MST were observed. Results Half-a-year survival rate, one-year survival rate and two-year survival rate were 50%, 9%, 1% in CM group, 70%, 30%, 6% in CM-WM combination group, and 50%, 10%, 0% in WM group, respectively. The survival rates in CM-WM combination group differed from those in CM group and WM group (P0.05) . MST at the stages of Ⅱb, Ⅲa, Ⅲb in CM-WM group was obviously prolonged as compared with the other two groups (P0.05) . CM treatment and minimally invasive therapy were effective on prolonging the survival time of PHC patients ( P<0.01) . The results of COX regressionanalysis showed that Karnofsky scores, CM treatment and minimally invasive therapy were the preventive factors for the prognosis. Conclusion CM-WM combination group has the best long -term therapeutic effect. CM -WM combination treatment is effective on increasing MST and long-term survival rate, in particular for PHC patients at the stages ofⅡb, Ⅲa and Ⅲb. CM treatment and minimally invasive therapy are helpful for the prolongation of the survival time of PHC patients.