Jianbu Huqian Wan Has Some Efficacy in Improving Clinical Symptoms of Deficiency-Type Cancer Bone Metastases

I previously introduced my experience treating a breast-cancer patient in Tianjin with lung and bone metastases (for details, see the article Experience Treating a Patient with Breast Cancer and Lung and Bone Metastases Using Modified Maxing Shigan Tang Combined with Wuling San). In that article I mentioned that the patient, paralyzed by bone metastases, was numb all over and felt as though her bones had shrunk into one mass. At the time I used many routine tendon-and-bone-strengthening herbs, with little effect. It so happened that a pharmaceutical-seller friend, seeing my own leg pain, had given me some Jianbu Huqian Wan he made himself; after I lost weight, my waist and leg pain disappeared, so I had never used it and it sat idle at home. At my wits’ end, I decided to give this medicine to the patient to try.

While taking the anti-cancer medicine I prescribed, the patient also took Jianbu Huqian Wan for just over a week. The tight, numb, painful feeling throughout her bones improved markedly; it was no longer as unbearable as before, and the effect was immediate, significantly improving her quality of life. I had not previously used such costly herbs as Jianbu Huqian Wan; now it seems that costly herbs do indeed have effects beyond those of ordinary Chinese medicine.

Jianbu Huqian Wan comes from Volume 3 of the Shangke Buyao (Supplements to Traumatology). Its composition: Guijiao (Turtle shell glue, fried with clam powder into beads), Lujiaojiao (Deer-horn glue, prepared the same way), Hugujing (Tiger bone, fried in butter—tiger bone is now banned; dog bone or artificial tiger bone is commonly used instead), Heshouwu (Polygonum multiflorum, mixed with black soybeans, steamed and sun-dried nine times each), Chuanniuxi (Sichuan Achyranthes, washed in wine and sun-dried), Duzhong (Eucommia, fried in ginger juice until fibers break), Suoyang (Cynomorium), Weilingxian (Clematis, washed in wine), Danggui (Angelica, washed in wine and sun-dried), each two liang; Huangbai (Phellodendron, washed in wine, sun-dried, stir-fried with a little salt water and wine), Renshen (Ginseng, awn removed), Qianghuo (Notopterygium), Baishao (White peony, lightly fried), Yunbaizhu (Yun Atractylodes, fried in earth), each two liang; Shudihuang (Rehmannia preparata) two liang; large Chuanfuzi (Aconite, one bowl each of child’s urine and salt water, one liang of sliced fresh ginger, boiled together for one full day until thoroughly cooked, adding salt water when the water dries up; after boiling, peel, slice, change to clean water, add five qian each of Chuanhuanglian (Coptis) and Gancao (Licorice), boil for the length of three long incense sticks, remove and sun-dry; it is usable when bright as amber) one and a half liang. Preparation and dosage: grind the above into fine powder, refine with honey into pills the size of a parasol-tree seed. Take three qian each time, on an empty stomach with weak salt water; in winter, take with weak yellow wine. My friend made this into large honey pills, each weighing 9 g, twice daily, one pill each time.

This is a strongly tonifying formula: it tonifies both yin and yang, and fortifies both spleen and kidney. Overall it mainly warms and supplements kidney yang, yet it also uses a bitter-cold herb like Huangbai. Adding Huangbai among a large group of yang-tonifying herbs, along with yin-nourishing Shudihuang and Guijiao, serves to restrain the yang-supporting herbs from damaging yin. Even so, after taking this formula the patient, although her pain and numbness improved markedly, still had a slight side effect of dryness-heat damaging the lung; the previously controlled cough with abundant sputum rebounded somewhat after taking Jianbu Huqian Wan. I therefore told her to use Lianhua Qingwen capsules to counteract this side effect.

This patient’s bone metastases were already very severe; she had been bedridden and paralyzed for a long time, and the Chinese and Western medicines she had taken before had been basically ineffective against the clinical symptoms of her bone metastases, with the condition progressively worsening. After taking Jianbu Huqian Wan it worked, and the patient thus saw hope.

This formula may be appropriate for this patient, but that does not mean it works well for all bone-metastasis patients. It leans toward tonifying, suitable for deficiency-type bone-metastasis patients, or for osteoporotic patients after chemotherapy and endocrine therapy. For bone-metastasis patients with a hot constitution, this formula would be harmful rather than beneficial.