Chinese herbal medicine therapy and the risk of overall mortality for patients with liver cancer who underwent surgical resection in Taiwan

• Published in: Complementary therapies in medicine 2019-12, Vol.47, p.102213-102213, Article 102213
• Main Authors: Tsai, Fuu-Jen, Liu, Xiang, Chen, Chao-Jung, Li, Te-Mao, Chiou, Jian-Shiun, Chuang, Po-Heng, Ko, Cheng-Hang, Lin, Ting-Hsu, Liao, Chiu-Chu, Huang, Shao-Mei, Liang, Wen-Miin, Lin, Ying-Ju
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aged; Bans; Cancer; Cancer therapies; Chemotherapy; Chi-square test; Chinese herbal medicine; Chinese medicine; Data mining; Diabetes; Drugs, Chinese Herbal - therapeutic use; Female; Health hazards; Hepatitis; Herbal medicine; Humans; Hypertension; Liver; Liver cancer; Liver diseases; Liver Neoplasms - drug therapy; Liver Neoplasms - mortality; Liver Neoplasms - surgery; Male; Medical treatment; Medicine, Chinese Traditional; Metastasis; Middle Aged; Mortality; Network analysis; Overall mortality; Population; Prescriptions; Radiation therapy; Rank tests; Retrospective Studies; Statistical methods; Statistical models; Statistical tests; Surgical resection; Survival Rate - trends; Taiwan - epidemiology; Therapeutic applications
• ISSN: 0965-2299; 1873-6963
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ctim.2019.102213

•We identified 1504 patients with liver cancer who underwent surgical resection.•CHM users showed a significantly lower risk of overall mortality than non-users.•Association rule mining and network analysis suggested that Bai-Hua-She-She-Cao, Ban-Zhi-Lian, and Suan-Zao-Ren were the most effective CHMs. Liver cancer is the sixth most diagnosed cancer globally, and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Surgical resection is a procedure performed to remove cancerous tissue from the liver. Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is a complementary natural medicine system widely used for treatment of hepatic diseases in Asian countries. We investigated the effects on overall mortality of long-term use of CHM for treatment of patients with liver cancer who underwent surgical resection at the Taiwan Center for Medicine. We identified 1504 patients with liver cancer who underwent surgical resection. Of these patients, 210 CHM users and 210 non-users were selected, and were matched for age, gender, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy prior to CHM treatment. Chi-squared test, Cox proportional hazard modeling, the Kaplan-Meier method, log-rank test, association rule mining, and network analysis were used as statistical methods in this study. CHM users showed a significantly lower risk of overall mortality than non-users (HR: 0.57, 95% CI = 0.40-0.81; p =  0.0025; multivariate Cox proportional hazard model), and a lower 10-year cumulative incidence of overall mortality (p