The Anti-Cancer, Anti-Thrombotic and Anti-Dementia Effects of Huatuo Zaizao Wan
Huatuo Zaizao Wan is, like Yunnan Baiyao, a Chinese patent medicine with a state-protected secret formula. It is a Class B medical-insurance drug and can be prescribed at medical-insurance-designated hospitals. Huatuo Zaizao Wan contains a total of 58 ingredients, including Rhizoma Chuanxiong (Chuanxiong), Fructus Evodiae (Wuzhuyu), Borneol (Bingpian), artificial Moschus (Rengong Shexiang), artificial Calculus Bovis (Rengong Niuhuang), Pheretima (Dilong), stir-fried Bombyx Batryticatus (Jiangcan), Scorpio (Quanxie) and Agkistrodon/Bungarus (Qishe). This product activates blood and resolves stasis, transforms phlegm and unblocks the collaterals, and moves qi to stop pain. It is mainly used for wind-stroke paralysis from blood stasis or phlegm-damp obstructing the meridians, with contracture and numbness, facial deviation and slurred speech.
In modern times it is mostly used for refractory diseases such as cerebral infarction, cerebral infarction with hyperviscosity, senile dementia, coronary heart disease with angina, facial palsy, rheumatoid arthritis, and middle- to late-stage cancer. Relevant controlled clinical studies of Huatuo Zaizao Wan for the above diseases show that it has some efficacy in all of them. For example, a controlled study comparing Huatuo Zaizao Wan combined with chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone for cancer found that the total effective rate with Huatuo Zaizao Wan could reach as high as 85%, versus 45% without it — a significant difference.
The reason Huatuo Zaizao Wan has such broad-spectrum therapeutic effects on the above diseases is related to its complex composition; among national Chinese patent medicines, few prescriptions are this large. Huatuo Zaizao Wan uses almost all of TCM's blood-activating, stasis-resolving, wind-dispersing and collateral-unblocking herbs. This prescribing approach is consistent with the approach I once summarized for broad-spectrum anti-cancer treatment with a large TCM compound formula acting on multiple targets (see my essay "My Practical Experience Using Large Multi-Target TCM Compounds to Fight Cancer"). Both adopt a large-prescription, multi-target treatment strategy, which is also consistent with the idea of the "cocktail therapy" advocated by Chinese-American physician Dr. David Ho.
Practice has shown that large TCM prescriptions have certain advantages in treating difficult and severe conditions such as cancer, stroke and senile dementia, and this prescribing approach is worth our in-depth exploration.