Clinical Studies On Effect Of Chinese Herbal Medicine On Acute Side Reaction Induced By Radiotherapy In NPC

Objective:To observe the effect of Chinese Herbal Medicine(CHM) on the radiotherapy(RT) induced acute side reaction in NPC.Methods: 195cases of NPC treated with radiotherapy for the first time were randomly assigned to two groups: treatment group (group Ⅰ , n=106) treated with radiotherapy and CHM, and control group (group Ⅱ, n=89) with radiotherapy alone. CHM was medicated on the first day of radiotherapy till the 5th weekend after radiotherapy. The indexes observed include the short-term therapeutic effect, radiological dose, total therapeutic effects of acute radio-reactions , the occurring time and degree of acute radio-reactions , static and dynamic saliva flowing velocity , usage of antibiotics . Relationship between acute radio- reactions and the syndrome types were analyzed.Results:Difference of short-term therapeutic effect between two groups is significant (P<0.05). There are 83 patients completely recovered in group Ⅰ (78.3%)and 57 in group Ⅱ (64%), which show that CHM has effect on sensitivity to radiotherapy. Compared with group Ⅱ, the total score of acute radio-reactions of group Ⅰ is significantly lower(P<0.01) . All cases show acute side reactions on skin, pharyngolaryngeal mucosa, upper gastrointestinal tract , teeth and salivary gland , the scores in group I were lower than that of group Ⅱ (P<0.05). Generally, the score of side-reaction in each case tends to increase in the first 7 weeks and peaks during 6th to 7th week , then descend. The score of acute reaction per week of group I is lower than that of group Ⅱ (P<0.05). Time of antibiotics usage in group Ⅰ was shorter than that in group Ⅱ (P<0.01).Clinical data above show that CHM can surely alleviate the side-reaction. Incidence of chronic sinusitis , RT induced rhinitis , nasalsynechia or atresia of posterior naris, medicamentous rhinitis increased after RT, but this wasn't seen in atrophic rhinitis and severe rhinorrhagia. No significant difference of rhinopathy incidence seen between two groups. Generally RT induced side-reactions change in following way. body fluids deficiency →toxic heat accumulation→ dual deficiency of QI&YIN. It must be mentioned that this principle is not absolute , some case may suffer two or more symptoms at the same time.Conclusions:CHM can reduce the acute radio- reaction of NPC patients, increase sensitivity to radiotherapy, alleviate the symptom and improve the life quality of NPC patients treated with radiotherapy.