The Limitations of TCM Pattern Differentiation in Treating Cancer

TCM as a whole is a systematic and holistic (also "fuzzy") medicine, and in treating many diseases it has advantages Western medicine lacks. Especially its pattern-differentiation approach, when confronting diseases Western medicine cannot diagnose or treat effectively, can start from holistic differentiation, find a solution, and relieve or remove the patient's suffering; its efficacy is beyond doubt.

But in treating cancer, TCM pattern differentiation has definite limitations. Relying on it alone cannot solve the root problem. After treating some cancer cases and observing other doctors treat cancer, I gradually formed a new understanding.

Cancer is a living thing; it has vitality, and that vitality is extraordinarily tenacious—that is what makes cancer so intractable. Pattern differentiation has great advantages in relieving cancer patients' symptoms and can solve problems Western medicine cannot, but when it comes to rooting out cancer it falls short.

In treating cancer, "inactivating" the cancer is an unavoidable step. As long as cancer cells are not inactivated, whether or not the visible tumor has disappeared, the cancer can awaken at any time and grow new tumors in the body. From this angle, the treatment rationale of Western chemotherapy and radiotherapy is necessary and well worth TCM learning from.

TCM circles oppose Western medicine's cancer-cell killing out of sheer contrarian habit; I myself was once deeply under this influence and cheered it on. But after a period of clinical practice and observing others, I found this complacent, self-righteous TCM view is very harmful. Doctors holding it have not achieved the satisfying results they claim. Raising immunity does not truly inactivate cancer.

Cancer is one of the parasitic tissues lodged in the human body; this parasitic tissue develops rapidly and, when severe, invades the host's major organs, causing multi-organ failure. Traditional TCM theory did not recognize this; it mostly held that accumulations and tumors arise from imbalance of yin-yang, cold-heat, and qi-blood stasis, or from internal and external injury.

I gradually came to realize that imbalance of yin-yang, cold-heat, and qi-blood, and internal-external injury, may be the results rather than the causes of cancer, or that cause and effect are tangled together. The belief that adjusting the body's yin-yang and qi-blood can cure cancer is wrong.

To cure cancer one must consider disease-differentiation treatment, not only pattern-differentiation treatment. Pattern differentiation can relieve symptoms, and this relief sometimes creates the illusion of efficacy, leading some doctors and patients to mistake the improvement for an eventual cure. But the outcome may cruelly confirm how fleeting that effect is. The patient's improved constitution is often only temporary, and the final result is the ebbing of life and the loss of the therapeutic window.

Disease-differentiation treatment requires seriously absorbing Western research on cancer and treating cancer as a living thing parasitizing the body, carrying out effective "inactivation." The TCM idea of "using poison to attack poison" is one treatment rationale that genuinely works for inactivating cancer, yet its dosage is extremely hard to control. Arsenic and other arsenic compounds have reliable efficacy against leukemia, but they also severely damage the liver, kidney, and other vital organs.

If TCM is to make real progress against cancer, clinical screening of specialized anti-cancer drugs (single herbs or compound formulas) is essential. Disease-differentiation treatment means treating cancer as a special disease—one that is not swayed by pattern differentiation but can be rooted out with specific drugs. For cancer, this parasitic-tissue disease, the inactivation approach deserves full attention; specialized drugs toxic to cancer cells, capable of inducing apoptosis, may be the key to treatment.

TCM compound formulas have real clinical significance and a future, and cancer treatment must be multifaceted. But the highest priority is inactivating cancer cells and stopping the frantic growth of this parasitic tissue. Achieving this is very hard; the drugs chosen are often harshly toxic, and an improper dose easily kills the patient. Yet giving up this attempt mostly ends in failure too; doctors who glibly claim to defeat cancer in theory are ultimately exposed as TCM frauds.

I personally believe pattern differentiation and vital-qi support should be regarded as adjunctive, not key, treatment. Using them to moderately improve the patient's quality of life and prolong survival—buying time for disease-differentiation and pathogen-expelling treatment to inactivate cancer cells—may be the way forward for TCM to cure cancer.