Ginseng Consumption Possible Effect on Liver Cancer: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Introduction

Ginseng is associated to the reduction of the risk of liver-cancer and some time is used as adjuvant therapy to treat liver-cancer, but its outcome remains uncertain. Hence, the present study aimed to determine the association between Ginseng consumption and liver-cancer.

Methods

By a systematic-literature search up to Decamber-2019, 9-studies included 13,766 subjects, 9235 Ginseng consumer. Odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) was determined comparing Ginseng consumption and liver-cancer relationship using the dichotomous method with a fixed-effect or random-effect models.

Results

Subjects consuming Ginseng had a significantly lower risk of developing liver-cancer than those not consuming Ginseng (OR, 0.46; 95% CI, 0.40-0.52, p < 0.001). Also, there was a significant relationship between Ginseng consumption as adjuvant-therapy and disease control rate (OR, 4.47; 95% CI, 2.41-8.28, p < 0.001), Karnofsky Performance Scale (OR, 4.31; 95% CI, 1.80-10.36, p = 0.001), response to chemotherapy rate (OR, 1.79; 95% CI, 1.05-3.02, p = 0.03) and decline of leukocyte count (OR, 0.17; 95% CI, 0.07-0.42, p < 0.001). However, there was no significant effect, but relatively favoring Ginseng consumption, between Ginseng consumption as adjuvant-therapy and one year survival rate (OR, 1.48; 95% CI, 0.78-2.81, p = 0.23), two year survival rate (OR, 1.69; 95% CI, 0.87-3.25, p = 0.12) gastrointestinal dysfunction (OR, 0.55; 95% CI, 0.17-1.79, p = 0.32), and the hepatic dysfunction (OR, 1.15; 95% CI, 0.59-2.22, p = 0.68).

Conclusions

Ginseng may have an independent relationship with reducing liver-cancer incidence when administrated to healthy subjects as a supplement and with reducing cancer-chemotherapy related outcomes risk when administrated with chemotherapy as adjuvant therapy.

Authors Contributions

1. Conception and design: Mohamed E.A. Abdelrahim and Liping Ren

2. Administrative support: All authors.

3. Provision of study materials or patients: All authors.

4. Collection and assembly of data: Chenhong Zhu; Jingyi Wang; Weinan Liu; Lei Chen

5. Data analysis and interpretation: All authors.

6. Manuscript writing: All authors.

7. Final approval of manuscript: All authors.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.