468P - The patterns of use of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in cancer patients in Hong Kong

Background

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is effective in alleviating side-effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. While TCM is popular among cancer patients, their health-seeking behavior is not well described. Safety data regarding concurrent use with oncology treatment is lacking.

Methods

This is a retrospective cohort study from a tertiary oncology institute. All patients who had follow-up visits in both the TCM clinic and Oncology department of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong from 2011 to 2022 were recruited.

Results

Fourteen patients were identified. Twelve (85.7%) were female, median age was 64. Nine (64.3%) of them were early-stage (I-II) cancers. Amongst these 14 patients, the distribution of cancer types was as follows: breast cancer (n=6), cervical cancer (n=3), head and neck cancer (n=2), ovarian cancer (n=2) and gastrointestinal cancer (n=1). Eight (57.4%) patients started to receive TCM advice at the same year of diagnosis, while half of them received conventional cancer treatment (chemotherapy, n=2; targeted therapy, n=1; hormone therapy, n=1) simultaneously. No CTCAE v5 Grade 3 or above adverse events were observed among patients having the concomitant use of TCM and chemotherapy. However, none of them informed the oncologist regarding the use of TCM. Patients tends to complain more symptoms to TCM practitioner than to Oncologists. The major reasons for TCM treatments were the treatment-emergent side effects (n=9), followed by the wish for reconditioning after anti-cancer treatment (n=6). Patients reported that the use of herbal medicine (H) improved insomnia (3 out of 4 pts), dizziness (n=1) and cancer pain (n=1). Moreover, the combined use of H and acupuncture showed clinical improvement in chemotherapy-induced numbness (1 out of 2 pts), pain associated with avascular necrosis (n=1), fatigue (n=1) and alopecia (n=1).

Conclusions

TCM demonstrated promising results in improving long-term treatment morbidity. Yet, most patients were not willing to disclose the use of TCM. Strengthening the communication between oncologists and patients would reduce the potential risk of herb-drug interactions.

Legal entity responsible for the study

The authors.

Funding

Has not received any funding.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.