The treatment of non-small cell lung cancer by interstitial I-125 seeds implantation combined with chemotherapy and Chinese medicine (await evidence-based, prospective, peer-reviewed studies)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22936319

Chin J Integr Med. 2012 Sep;18(9):663-9. Epub 2012 Aug 31.

The treatment of non-small cell lung cancer by interstitial I-125 seeds implantation combined with chemotherapy and Chinese medicine.

Feng Y, Xiao YY, Li SD, Lin MX, Zhang Y, Wang HM, Li M, Zhang X, Cao K, Ye YF, Zhao L.

Source

Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chinese People's Liberation Army General Hospital, Beijing, 100853, China, fengwengang5097@sina.com.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

To investigate the effects of brachytherapy with computed tomography-guided percutaneous radioactive I-125 seeds interstitial implantation (ISI) synchronized chemotherapy and Chinese medicine (CM) for the treatment of advanced stage of non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC).

METHODS:

Ninety patients diagnosed with NSCLC by biopsy were randomly assigned to three groups: the synchronized therapy group (A), the chemotherapy plus CM-treated group (B), and the chemotherapy-treated group (C); a 2-month course of treatment was administered to them all. The effectiveness of treatment was evaluated based on tumor size, tumor markers (carcinoembryonic, squamous cell carcinoma-associated antigen, and cytokeratin 19 fragment), clinical symptoms, and quality of life (QOL) in patients.

RESULTS:

The total effective rates of Groups A to C were 83.33%, 46.67%, and 43.33%, respectively. The tumor markers were reduced obviously in Group A, showing signifificant difference compared with those in the other two groups. Additionally, QOL was elevated and cancer-related symptoms were alleviated more signifificant in Group A than those in Group C (all P<0.05).

CONCLUSION:

The synchronized therapy of I-125 implantation with chemotherapy and CM was a safe therapeutic method and can be regarded as a new mode for treatment of advanced-stage NSCLC.