Analysis of Long-term Survival for Radiotherapy Plus Traditional Chinese Medicine for Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Objective To investigate the long-term survival for radiotherapy plus traditional Chinese medicine zeng sheng ping (ZSP) for ESCC. Methods From June 1988 to December 1999，a prospective observation study was made to investigate how ZSP improved long-term survival of esophageal cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy in High-risk area of esophageal cancer.Two hundred and ten cases with esophageal cancer were selected，among which the treatment group was treated with ZSP，while the control group given no adjuvant therapy.Taking continuous medication for more than 12 months was regarded as effective cases，and the mortality rate endpoint indicators.Cox Proportional Hazards model was used to analyze various to impacts on the long-term survival，which includes clinical stage，gender，age，genetic history of cancer，karnofsky functional status score and smoking，alcohol. Results Study showed that 1，2，3，4，5，6-year survival rate of patients with stage Ⅲ and Ⅳ，was 80.2%，50.2%，42.1%，27.4% 17.3% and 14.2% in the treatment group respectively，control group was 76.7%，41.8%，18.8%，15.2%，10.6% and 9.6%，P=0.039;median survival times was 23.5 months，and 18.9 months，P=0.027.However，the long-term survival and median survival were not statistically significant for the clinical stage Ⅰ and Ⅱ.Cox Multivariate analysis showed that the clinical group，tumor stage and genetic history of cancer were independent risk factors.The regression coefficients were:0.44，0.32 and 0.28，P<0.05.The percentage of follow-up patients was 93.0%. Conclusion ZSP can increase the long-term survival for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma with stage Ⅲ and Ⅳ.