Gemcitabine and cisplatin combined with the Chinese herbal medicine compound Fuzhenggubenfang improve quality of life and progression-free survival in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer

Objective: To assess the role of chemotherapy combined with the compound Chinese herbal medicine, Fuzhenggubenfang (FZGBF), for treating advanced non-small-cell lung cancer. Methods: A total of 84 eligible patients were enrolled from October 2013 to July 2016. Patients were randomized to receive either chemotherapy alone as the control group or chemotherapy combined with FZGBF as the experimental group. The primary endpoint of the study was quality of life (QOL) and progression-free survival (PFS). Secondary endpoints were tumor response rate, toxicity, dropout rate, and univariate and multivariate analyses of clinicopathologic factors for QOL and PFS. Results: There was a significant improvement in QOL, including better overall health (P 0.001), physical function (P 0.001), role function (P 0.001), emotional function (P 0.001), cognitive function (P 0.001), and social function (P = 0.031). Less fatigue, nausea or vomiting, insomnia, appetite loss, constipation, and alopecia were noted (All P 0.001) when FZGBF was combined with chemotherapy in comparison to chemotherapy alone. The experimental group had a better PFS compared with the control group (P = 0.032). There was no significant difference in tumor response rate. FZGBF significantly reduced chemotherapy-induced anemia (P 0.001), neutropenia (P = 0.023), nausea and vomiting (P 0.001). The use of Chinese herbal compounds had only mild side effects. In this study, factors influencing QOL were the use of the Chinese herbal compounds (P 0.001), performance status score (P = 0.027), clinical staging of cancer (P = 0.009), and sex (P = 0.044). Use of traditional Chinese medicine (P = 0.043) and the number of previous chemotherapy sessions (P = 0.003) were the factors influencing PFS in this study. Conclusion: FZGBF could improve QOL, compliance to treatment, relieved chemotherapy-related toxicities of patients, and consequently improved PFS, which is a promising drug combination in complementary medicine for the treatment of advanced NSCLC.