¡¡¡¡Leukemia is a kind of malignant tumor of the hemopoietic system. It is also commonly known as the ¡°blood cancer¡±. There are about 40,000 new cases of leukemia in China every year. It is the malignant tumor with the highest incidence in youngsters and it is also among the top ten high incidence malignant tumors. The internationally accepted classification system for leukemia is the FAB system made jointly by hematology researchers from the United States, Britain and France.
¡¡¡¡Leukemia is divided into two groups, acute leukemia and chronic leukemia. Acute leukemia is further divided into acute lymphocytic leukemia and acute nonlymphocytic leukemia. Acute lymphocytic leukemia has three subtypes, L1, L2, and L3. Acute nonlymphocytic leukemia has seven subtypes, M1 to M7. The chronic leukemia commonly seen is chronic granulocytic leukemia and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. For Western Medicine, the main therapeutic method for leukemia is chemotherapy. Its major effect is to kill leukemic cells. However, it is impossible to achieve 100% kill no matter how high the dosage is. The residual leukemic cells would be a permanent threat. Chinese medicine is the primary choice to kill the residual leukemic cells completely. The immunologic function of the body can completely kill the residual leukemic cells only when leukemic cells is lower than 106. So it is necessary to use chemotherapy to alleviate leukemia, but chemotherapy cannot be used blindly. It would not be suitable to use chemotherapy when the health condition of the patient is not so good or when the patient is resistant to the drugs. It is not right to think only of curing the disease without thinking of the condition of the patient. The combination of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine can achieve a very satisfactory curative effect with a very high cure rate. Traditional Chinese medicine cannot take the place of Western Medicine and vice versa.
¡¡¡¡With the combination of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine the treatment outcom of leukemia has been improved greatly. The remission rate for acute lymphocytic leukemia in children is above 90% and the cure rate is about 50%. Complete remission is achieved in 90% of the type M3 acute nonlymphocytic leukemia (acute promyelocytic leukemia) and most of the patients can be cured. The remission rates in other types of leukemia have also reached more than 80%. Chinese herbal medicine alone can not only achieve total remission in patients suffering from chronic leukemia but also can prevent such cases from transforming into acute cases. Early stages of chronic leukemia can be treated with oral administration of ¡°Qiankun Capsules¡± and the series of medical broth with the function of removing toxic agents. Chemotherapy can be used simultaneously for those patients with a high cell count of white blood cells. Based on our abundant clinical experiences we conclude that treating leukemia with Chinese herbal medicines has the following advantages.
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Chinese herbal medicines can work in synergy with chemotherapy and thus improve the sensitivity of blastic cell to chemotherapy and prevent potential drug resistances. |
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Chinese herbal medicines can antagonize the side effects of the chemotherapy and provide protection while the normal bone marrow with hemopoietic functions restores by preventing the serious arrests of bone marrow suppression caused by the drugs used during chemotherapy. |
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Chinese herbal medicines can induce and accelerate the apoptosis of leukemic cells. The concept of this kind of cell apoptosis is programmatic death of the cells. That is to say leukemic cells can die following the growth cycle of a normal cell. The mechanism of leukemia is that leukemic cells cannot grow and die as normal cells and can only proliferate malignantly. |
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Chinese herbal medicines can induce some of the leukemic cells differentiate into normal cells and achieve a very satisfactory curative effect. |
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