Complementary Cancer Therapy for Ganoderma Lucidum
How to evaluate the role of Ganoderma lucidum in cancer treatment? This is a concern of both academia and patients. Some controlled clinical reports indicate that Ganoderma lucidum combined with chemotherapy or radiotherapy can alleviate bone marrow depression, gastrointestinal injury and immunosuppression caused by chemotherapy or radiotherapy, improve life quality of patients, play a synergistic and attenuating role, that is, Ganoderma lucidum can be recommended for adjuvant treatment of tumors.
- Ganoderma lucidum for adjuvant treatment of tumors
- Clinical report of Ganoderma lucidum adjuvant therapy for tumors
- Mechanisms of Ganoderma lucidum adjuvant therapy for cancer
- Principles of TCM for Promoting Zheng and Eliminating Pathogens and Ganoderma Lucidum in the Treatment of Tumors
Ganoderma lucidum for adjuvant treatment of tumors
Some clinical experimental results indicate that Ganoderma lucidum combined with chemotherapy or radiotherapy has better adjuvant therapeutic effect on some tumors such as esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, liver cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, prostate cancer, uterine cancer, etc.
Its curative effects are as follows: to alleviate bone marrow depression caused by radiotherapy and chemotherapy, such as leukopenia and thrombocytopenia; to alleviate gastrointestinal tract injury caused by radiotherapy and chemotherapy, such as loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting; to improve the immune function of cancer patients, enhance the anti-infective immunity of the body; to improve the quality of life of cancer patients, so as to enhance the body. These results indicate that Ganoderma lucidum can be used as adjuvant therapy for cancer radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and play a synergistic and attenuating role.
Complementary Cancer Therapy for Ganoderma Lucidum
Clinical report of Ganoderma lucidum adjuvant therapy for tumors
Wang Huaijin et treated 22 patients with malignant tumors with ganoderma spore & Ganoderma lucidum extract only. Among them, 16 cases were pathologically diagnosed, including 8 cases of squamous cell lung cancer, 5 cases of invasive breast cancer, 1 case of small cell lung cancer and 6 cases of primary liver cancer meeting the clinical diagnostic criteria. The age ranged from 41 to 70 years, with an average age of 60 years. 14 cases were male and 8 cases were female. No topical radiotherapy, chemotherapy or biological response modifiers were used within 1 month. Other chemicals and Chinese medicines were not used during Ganoderma lucidum administration. The patients were treated with 50 grams of organic Ganoderma lucidum tablets, 500 ML of water, decocting for 30 minutes, and 4 grams of organically broken Ganoderma lucidum spore powder for 4 weeks in the morning and evening. Evaluated according to World Health Organization (WHO) criteria, it is divided into the following criteria:
1) CR (complete remission): The lesion disappeared completely for more than 4 weeks.
2) PR (partial remission): The tumors were reduced by more than 50% and maintained for more than 4 weeks.
3) MR (middle remission): The mass was reduced by more than 25%, but less than 50%. There was no new lesion or metastasis.
4) SD (stable): Less than 25% of the mass was reduced, or less than 25% of the mass was enlarged. There was no new lesion or metastasis.
5)PD (progress): Mass enlargement is more than 25%, or new lesions appear or metastasis occurs.
The results of treatment were as follows: CR in 1 case, PR in 2 cases, MR in 4 cases, SD in 14 cases and PD in 1 case. The Karnofsky criteria for evaluating patients’quality of life before and after treatment were as follows: 8 cases (36.4%) had a 10-point increase in quality of life ; 2 cases (9.1%) had a decrease of more than 10 points. 7 cases (31.8%) had alleviated systemic fatigue symptoms. There were no gastrointestinal reactions such as nausea and vomiting, nor abnormal liver and kidney function, and the decrease of white blood cells, hemoglobin and platelets.
The authors believe that the therapeutic effect of some cancer patients in this group is not obvious, because the tumors that have grown to a large size often exceed the level 0 dynamic killing range of immunotherapy. The residual or micro-metastatic lesions after surgical excision, radiotherapy or chemotherapy are difficult problems to be solved by the above three chemotherapies, and immunotherapy may achieve good results. Therefore, Ganoderma lucidum can cooperate with surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy to produce better anti-tumor effect.
Mechanisms of Ganoderma lucidum adjuvant therapy for cancer
Pharmacological studies have shown that oral administration or injection of Ganoderma lucidum extract or polysaccharides and triterpenoids from Ganoderma lucidum can significantly inhibit the growth of various animal-inhibited tumors and have obvious anti-tumor effects. However, Ganoderma lucidum extract or Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharide can not directly kill the tumor cells when added directly to the tumor cells cultured in vitro. So how does Ganoderma lucidum extract or Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharide produce anti-tumor effect in vivo? It has been proved that Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharide can improve the anti-tumor immune function of organism, such as killing tumor cells indirectly by enhancing the functions of macrophages, natural killer cells (NK) and cytotoxic T cells, and killing tumor cells by inhibiting or killing cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and interferon (IFN) of tumor cells through macrophages and T lymphocytes. Or promote apoptosis. Therefore, the anti-tumor effect of Ganoderma lucidum and its polysaccharides is mainly achieved by enhancing the body’s anti-tumor immunity. Different from Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharides, the triterpenoids contained in Ganoderma lucidum can inhibit the growth of tumor cells in vitro.
On the other hand, Ganoderma lucidum can also inhibit neovascularization of tumors. When tumors begin to grow, there are no blood vessels around them. Neovascularization must grow into the tumors, so that the tumors can absorb the nutrients needed for growth from the blood and continue to grow or move to other places. Pharmacological studies have confirmed that Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharide inhibits angiogenesis of tumors by inhibiting the proliferation of vascular endothelial cells. Without blood supply and nutrition, the growth of tumors is inhibited.
Pharmacological studies have also found that Ganoderma lucidum has anti-radiation effect, alleviates gastrointestinal injury caused by chemo-radiotherapy drugs, and can enhance the anti-tumor effect of chemotherapeutic drugs such as cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, cisplatin and cytarabine arabinoside, which is consistent with the synergistic and toxic effects of clinical observation on chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Principles of TCM for “strengthening the right and dispelling evil” and Ganoderma Lucidum in the Treatment of Tumors
Surgical treatment can resect the tumor tissue. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy can reduce or disappear the tumor by killing the tumor cells. However, neither metastasis nor removal of the tumor cells can be completely avoided. On the contrary, the injury caused by surgery and the toxicity of chemotherapy or radiotherapy can also reduce the body’s anti-tumor immunity, and produce toxicity to bone marrow, digestive system, liver, kidney and other important organs, and even directly or indirectly lead to the death of patients, which is the consequence of the so-called radiotherapy and chemotherapy. According to the principles of traditional Chinese medicine, the surgical resection of tumors, chemotherapy and radiotherapy only pay attention to “dispelling pathogenic factors” while ignoring “strengthening the body” and even injuring the vital energy. Therefore, the results of the above-mentioned treatment are inconsistent. The role of Ganoderma lucidum in cancer chemotherapy and radiation therapy is to make up for the deficiencies of these two therapies, that is, to support the healthy qi and truly achieve the goal of “strengthening the right and dispelling evil”. More about Complementary Cancer Therapy for Ganoderma Lucidum information, please check here
