Effectiveness of Japanese Kampo Medicine in the Treatment of Head and Neck Cancers during Radiotherapy

Abstract

This study evaluated the effectiveness of Sairei-to and Juzen-taiho-to in the reduction of symptoms caused by radiotherapy in patients suffering from malignant tumors of the head and neck. The subjects included 13 patients (11 males and 2 females) with a mean age of 69.4 years ranging from 51to 83. The primary lesions of the 13 cases were as follows: 6 male patients with laryngeal cancer,4males with hypopharyngeal cancer,1 female with epipharyngeal cancer,1 male with lingual cancer and 1 female with parotid cancer. Sairei-to (TJ-114) 9.0 g/day and Junzen-taiho-to (TJ-48) 7.5 g/day were given to each subject during the course of radiotherapy at 50-60 Gy.
Redness, pain and swelling of the oral and pharyngeal mucosa occurred as local symptoms. These symptoms, the ability to feed, the regularity of the irradiation, and systemic symptoms were observed during the first 2 weeks and at the end of the irradiation. A total of 53.9% of the subjects experienced improvements in their local and systemic symptoms. No side effects were reported. Concurrent combination radiotherapy consisting of Japanese Kampo medicine (Sairei-to and Juzentaihoto) seemed to have a beneficial effect in reducing some of the symptoms caused by radiotherapy.