Evidence map›Paper›PMID 23560092›Full record

ReviewPloS one2013

Traditional Chinese medicine in cancer care: a review of controlled clinical studies published in chinese.

Xun Li, Guoyan Yang, Xinxue Li, Yan Zhang, Jingli Yang, Jiu Chang, Xiaoxuan Sun, Xiaoyun Zhou, Yu Guo, Yue Xu and 2 more

Erratum issuedAbstract readReview
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Review in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 103 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
103citing papers in PubMed, 7 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

103 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
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  8. Chinese Herbal Medicine (Journal of alternative and complementary medicine (New York, N.Y.) · 2019
    Trial
  9. Trial
  10. Trial
  11. Quinoa (International journal of molecular sciences · 2026
    Review
  12. Review
  13. [Nan fang yi ke da xue xue bao = Journal of Southern Medical University · 2025
    Article
  14. Review
  15. Review
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Review

43 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

  • Erratum issued
5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

12 authors.

Xun LiCentre for Evidence-based Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China.
Guoyan Yang
Xinxue Li
Yan Zhang
Jingli Yang
Jiu Chang
Xiaoxuan Sun
Xiaoyun Zhou
Yu Guo
Yue Xu
Jianping Liu
Alan Bensoussan

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundTraditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been widely applied for cancer care in China. There have been a large number of controlled clinical studies published in Chinese literature, yet no systematic searching and analysis has been done. This study summarizes the current evidence of controlled clinical studies of TCM for cancer.

methodsWe searched all the controlled clinical studies of TCM therapies for all kinds of cancers published in Chinese in four main Chinese electronic databases from their inception to November 2011. We bibliometrically analyzed the included studies and assessed the reporting quality.

resultsA total of 2964 reports (involving 253,434 cancer patients) including 2385 randomized controlled trials and 579 non-randomized controlled studies were included. The top seven cancer types treated were lung cancer, liver cancer, stomach cancer, breast cancer, esophagus cancer, colorectal cancer and nasopharyngeal cancer by both study numbers and case numbers. The majority of studies (72%) applied TCM therapy combined with conventional treatment, whilst fewer (28%) applied only TCM therapy in the experimental groups. Herbal medicine was the most frequently applied TCM therapy (2677 studies, 90.32%). The most frequently reported outcome was clinical symptom improvement (1667 studies, 56.24%) followed by biomarker indices (1270 studies, 42.85%), quality of life (1129 studies, 38.09%), chemo/radiotherapy induced side effects (1094 studies, 36.91%), tumor size (869 studies, 29.32%) and safety (547 studies, 18.45%). Completeness and adequacy of reporting appeared to improve with time.

conclusionsData from controlled clinical studies of TCM therapies in cancer treatment is substantial, and different therapies are applied either as monotherapy or in combination with conventional medicine. Reporting of controlled clinical studies should be improved based on the CONSORT and TREND Statements in future. Further studies should address the most frequently used TCM therapy for common cancers and outcome measures should address survival, relapse/metastasis and quality of life.

Indexed as

Medicine, Chinese TraditionalPhytotherapyAntineoplastic AgentsCombined Modality TherapyControlled Clinical Trials as TopicDatabases, BibliographicDrugs, Chinese HerbalHumansNeoplasmsRandomized Controlled Trials as TopicTreatment OutcomeAntineoplastic AgentsDrugs, Chinese Herbal

Identifiers

PMID23560092
PMCPMC3616129

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.