{"entity":{"id":"paper-taixiang-cochrane-database-syst-rev","kind":"paper","name":"Chinese medical herbs for chemotherapy side effects in colorectal cancer patients","aka":[],"tldr":"Paper cited by one technology page, indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 15674951 and published in The Cochrane database of systematic reviews; the citing page links this DOI, which is how the record was matched.","summary":"Background: Side effects, including nausea and vomiting, sore mouth, diarrhoea, hepatotoxicity, myelosuppression, and immunosuppression, are commonly encountered in patients with colorectal cancer who are treated with chemotherapy. A variety of Chinese herbal medicines have been used for managing these adverse effects.\n\nObjectives: To assess the effect of herbal medicines plus chemotherapy, compared with chemotherapy alone, on the side effects of chemotherapy on the quality of life, and on adverse events in patients with colorectal cancer.\n\nSearch strategy: We searched the Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CBM, and handsearched the relevant Chinese journals.\n\nSelection criteria: Randomised trials comparing either chemotherapy only or chemotherapy plus anti-emetics (tropisetron, sulpiride etc) with chemotherapy plus Chinese herbs.\n\nData collection and analysis: Trial quality was assessed independently by two reviewers. Data were extracted by one reviewer and checked by the second reviewer. Since the four included studies differed significantly in design, we could only perform limited meta-analyses. We have therefore presented the majority of the data in narrative form.\n\nMain results: We included four relevant trials. All of them were of low quality. All of studies used a decoction containing Huangqi compounds as the intervention with chemotherapy. The intervention groups of three studies were compared to a chemotherapy alone control group, the fourth study compared the decoction of Huangqi compounds with two other Chinese herbal interventions. None of the studies reported on primary outcome using Common Toxicity Criteria (CTC). There was a significant reduction in the proportion of patients who experienced nausea & vomiting when decoctions of Huangqi compounds were given in addition to chemotherapy. There was also a decrease in the rate of leucopenia (WBC <3 x 10(9) per L). Huangqi compounds were also associated with increases in the proportions of T-lymphocyte subsets: CD3; CD4 and CD8. Huangqi decoctions had no significant effects on Immunoglobulins G, A or M.\n\nAuthors' conclusions: Despite the included studies being of low quality, the results suggest that decoctions of Huangqi compounds may stimulate immunocompetent cells and decrease side effects in patients treated with chemotherapy. Due to the methodological limitations of the studies, there is no robust demonstration of benefit. We found no evidence of harm arising from the use of Chinese herbs. We need high quality randomised controlled studies investigating the effects of decoctions of Chinese herbs, particularly Astragalus spp.(as in Huangqi), upon chemotherapy-related side effects.\n\nIndexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 15674951 (DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd004540.pub2). Matched by DOI alone: one technology page cites this DOI among its external links (the pages are listed under Related), and this page was written so that the citation resolves inside OnCo. No figure has been checked by an editor.","asOf":"2026-09-22","links":[{"label":"Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2005","url":"https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.cd004540.pub2"},{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15674951/"},{"label":"Europe PMC","url":"https://europepmc.org/article/MED/15674951"}],"tags":["europepmc-ingest"],"related":["traditional-chinese-herbal-medicine"],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"journal":"The Cochrane database of systematic reviews","year":2005,"doi":"10.1002/14651858.cd004540.pub2","pmid":"15674951","authors":"Taixiang W, Munro AJ, Guanjian L","paperType":"meta-analysis","findings":[],"whatItMeans":"One technology page on OnCo cites this paper by its DOI; this record gives the citation a page of its own so a reader can follow it without leaving OnCo. Read the abstract above alongside the citing page listed under Related; the record was created automatically from the Europe PMC entry and its figures have not been checked by hand.","caveats":["Matched to the citing OnCo records by DOI alone; the summary reproduces the Europe PMC abstract and no figure has been verified against the full paper."]},"route":"/key-papers/paper-taixiang-cochrane-database-syst-rev/","neighbours":{"technology":[{"id":"traditional-chinese-herbal-medicine","kind":"technology","name":"Traditional Chinese herbal medicine alongside treatment","route":"/technologies/traditional-chinese-herbal-medicine/"}]}}