Report on Six Cancer Cases Personally Followed Up Where Folk Single-Proven Formulas Showed Marked Effect (Two Cured)

Written on July 20, 2013

The six patients in this report were all personally contacted by myself, or their closest relatives, and confirmed as factual by the patients or their families.

Case One (a cure): a female patient in Zhejiang developed cancer when young (the original records are too old to recover, and the patient's niece does not know which cancer). Her husband dug herbs on the mountain for her; after several years on the herbs she was cured and lived to an advanced age. Last year her own daughter developed advanced cervical cancer. The niece badly wanted to find the anti-cancer herb but could not, because the people concerned have all died. Hence the patient's condition and medication cannot be verified.

Case Two (a cure of laryngeal cancer): the patient was a relative by marriage of my neighbor—the elder brother of the neighbor's son-in-law—and was personally followed up by myself. About twenty years ago he developed laryngeal cancer and later took two local herbs. One of them, by comparison with the Chinese Materia Medica Dictionary (my father studied medicine under our great-uncle, knows rough herbal medicine, and recognizes over two hundred herbs), was identified as Yizhihuanghua (Solidago decurrens). The other, according to local old TCM doctors I consulted, was called Zhenzhucai (Lysimachia clethroides). But after careful checking by myself, both herbs differ considerably from the Yizhihuanghua and Zhenzhucai recorded in books; their scientific names remain unknown to this day.

I personally tested the toxicity of both herbs: the one my father thought was Solidago has strong kidney toxicity. The other has remarkable efficacy for pharyngitis and nasopharyngitis. I am currently trying it on a recovering nasopharyngeal carcinoma patient.

Case Three (advanced gastric cancer, surviving nearly five years): a gastric cancer patient from Penglai, Shandong, told to me by his niece. After two courses of chemotherapy for advanced gastric cancer he gave up Western treatment and later took a local Penglai herb called "Huailidun," surviving over four years. Last year, because of abdominal distension, he went to hospital: the original gastric lesion had completely disappeared, but the liver was filled with tumors. He died shortly after discovering the liver tumors (after last year's autumn harvest).

The patient's niece is now consulting me for her own mother—his biological sister, in terminal-stage breast cancer—hoping I can relieve her pain; she offered this case as reference for my prescribing. So this folk remedy's effect is real. Through the niece, local TCM doctors were asked about the herb's scientific name; they believe it is Kushen (Sophora flavescens). Given my own previous experience of local TCM doctors being wrong, I doubt the Penglai doctors' identification is reliable. I am asking the niece to photograph the fresh herb for my verification.

Case Four (lymphoma patient on large-dose Jinyinhua, surviving five years to date): a Beijing local patient I met and saw in person. He took large doses of Jinyinhua (Lonicera/Honeysuckle, 100–200 g per day) long-term, underwent no Western treatment after lymphoma, and has survived to the present with essentially no itching. Large-dose Jinyinhua for tumors appears in Dongtian Aozhi, a medical work by Chen Shiduo of the Qing dynasty, who highly praised it. From this lymphoma patient's experience, Chen's esteem for Jinyinhua likely came from clinical results.

Case Five (advanced gastric cancer patient on large-dose Digupi, surviving three years): a local patient I personally visited. By the time his gastric cancer was found it was advanced and inoperable; doctors advised chemotherapy, but the family was poor and gave it up. He went home and dug wild wolfberry root (scientifically Digupi; sold in TCM herb shops), survived three more years, and died, with good quality of life throughout. He worked normally until the last month or two, when he rapidly declined and passed away.

Case Six (advanced gastric cancer patient, alive over a year on hickory bark): my own first cousin once removed—the son of my grandmother's youngest sister. Since advanced gastric cancer was found the year before last, chemotherapy failed and he went home to wait for death. Then, through another cousin's inquiries in many directions, he obtained a large quantity of mountain hickory bark and has taken it; he is still alive, working normally, and well.

In addition, I recently met the son of an esophageal-cancer patient under my care; he told me of another lung-cancer patient he personally knew. After open-chest surgery the surgeons found such extensive metastasis and spread that they dared not resect; they closed the incision and discharged the patient. Later the patient took mountain hickory twigs and bark for about half a year, after which the lung lesions disappeared, and he is still alive. But this case was not personally followed up by me; it is recorded for reference only. Mountain hickory twigs and walnut bark are recorded in various TCM anti-cancer works.

Folk single and proven formulas do have effects against cancer, but basically these formulas can all be found in various anti-cancer TCM books; they are not magical secret recipes. It is just that when recorded as single proven formulas in books, few doctors believe in them and use them clinically. Of course, the success rate of single formulas against cancer is also surprisingly low. In recent years I have seen a great many cancer cases, including many who took single formulas; truly effective ones are only these few. By comparison, seeking a TCM doctor to prescribe a compound formula for cancer gives a much higher rate of marked effect.

Single-proven-formula treatment follows the TCM principle of treating by disease (TCM has always had two principles: pattern-differentiation treatment and disease-differentiation treatment); I have personally felt its efficacy. My father excels at external TCM treatment of many diseases, all by single proven formulas. He treats tonsillitis (ru'e) and diphtheria with unfailing success, without any pattern differentiation. Later I saw in the case records of many famous physicians how arduously they differentiated patterns for these very diseases, and how they attacked one another, insisting the others' differentiation was wrong. I cannot but sigh deeply—to a certain extent, TCM's pattern-differentiation view verges on obsession and foolishness.