Traditional Chinese Medicine for Breast Cancer: A Review

Abstract

A total of 18% of global breast cancer (BC) deaths are attributed to BC in China, making it one of the five most common cancers there. There has been a steady rise in BC morbidity and mortality in women in the last few years and it is now a leading cancer among Chinese women. Conventional treatments for BC are currently effective but have several limitations and disadvantages, and Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) plays a vital role in the overall process of cancer prevention and therapy. It is known that TCM can treat a variety of conditions at a variety of sites and targets. In recent years, increasingly, research has been conducted on TCM’s ability to treat BC. TCM has shown positive results in the treatment of breast cancer and the adverse effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. This review describes the progress of clinical observation and mechanism research of TCM in the treatment of breast cancer in recent years. It provides some ideas and theoretical basis for the treatment of BC with TCM.

Keywords:

• formulas
• acupuncture
• mechanism of action
• therapy

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 81603412); Health Commission of Hebei Province (Grant no. 20220962); Scientific Research Project of Hebei Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (Grant no. 2023045; Grant no. 2024023); General Projects for Improving Scientific Research Capacity of Hebei College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (Grant no. KTY2019009); Hebei Province “Three Three Three Talent Project” funded project (Grant no. A202002008); and Hebei Graduate Innovation Funding Project (Grant nos. XCXZZSS2023017 and XCXZZSS2023027). We also thank Figdraw platform for visualization.

Disclosure

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest for this work.