Abstract
One of the greatest challenges in the treatment of pancreatic cancer remains its inherent lack of beneficial response to cytotoxic chemotherapy. According to the encyclopedic knowledge on herbal medicine regimen and clinical experience accumulated for centuries, traditional Chinese medicine can provide new avenues for alternative treatments of pancreatic diseases. Chinese herbal extracts have been widely used for the treatment of various cancers, but objective information on their efficacy in pancreatic cancer is lacking. This article provides a summary of herbal medicine, presented at the Annual Meeting of ASCO, 2008. The clinical applications of these active compounds warrant further investigation in randomized, controlled clinical trials.
MeSH terms
- Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols / adverse effects
- Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols / therapeutic use*
- Capecitabine
- Clinical Trials, Phase I as Topic / statistics & numerical data
- Clinical Trials, Phase II as Topic / statistics & numerical data
- Curcumin / administration & dosage
- Deoxycytidine / administration & dosage
- Deoxycytidine / analogs & derivatives
- Dose-Response Relationship, Drug
- Drugs, Chinese Herbal / administration & dosage
- Fluorouracil / administration & dosage
- Fluorouracil / analogs & derivatives
- Gemcitabine
- Herbal Medicine* / trends
- Humans
- Multicenter Studies as Topic
- Pancreatic Neoplasms / drug therapy*
- Plant Preparations / therapeutic use*
Substances
- Drugs, Chinese Herbal
- PHY 906
- Plant Preparations
- Deoxycytidine
- Capecitabine
- Curcumin
- Fluorouracil
- Gemcitabine