Intravesical Instillation of Chinese Medicine for Bladder Cancer
Intravesical instillation is a treatment method that can deliver drugs directly to the entire mucosal surface of the bladder. Its advantage is that the warmed medicinal solution can reach the lesion directly without missing any cancerous lesions. Its anti-cancer mechanism is the combined direct killing effect of the thermal effect of the Chinese medicine and the intravesical pressure on tumor cells; this method can induce massive apoptosis of cancer cells, thereby achieving the therapeutic goal. However, this treatment must be performed by professionals; patients and their families cannot use intravesical instillation on their own.
Some scholars in China have used Chinese-medicine intravesical instillation to treat bladder tumors.
For example, Zhao Gaoxian et al. used heated Donglingcao (Rabdosia rubescens) solution to prevent bladder tumor recurrence. They used this method for as long as 20 years, performing 1149 sessions of intravesical local thermochemotherapy in 154 patients. Five-year clinical observation found that after intravesical instillation, tumors disappeared completely or there was no recurrence for five years postoperatively in 131 cases (85%); tumors shrank in 22 cases (14%); tumors enlarged in 1 case (0.6%). Such treatment results confirm that Chinese-medicine intravesical instillation does indeed have a certain therapeutic and recurrence-preventing effect against cancer.
Liu Shushuo et al. used a compound Wufan solution (mainly containing Wubeizi, Galla chinensis, and Mingfan, alum) for intravesical instillation in bladder-tumor patients, and observed the bladder mucosa and tumor tissue before and after instillation under scanning and transmission electron microscopy. The results showed marked protein coagulation in normal bladder mucosa and superficial tumor cells, with cell-membrane shrinkage, necrosis and sloughing, and no serious side effects.
In animal experiments, scholars such as Liu Yue added different concentrations of Yadanzi (Brucea javanica) oil emulsion to the BIU-87 bladder cancer cell line, and performed intravesical instillation on BBN-induced bladder-cancer mice. The results showed that Brucea oil emulsion can directly destroy bladder cancer cells.
Traditional TCM treats cancer through oral herbs, which must be metabolized by the liver; this may on the one hand damage the liver and on the other hand affect the therapeutic effect. This innovative use of Chinese medicine combined with modern medicine can avoid the above problems while making the therapeutic effect more prominent.
Of course, this method also has certain limitations. Cancer is a systemic disease; its clinical symptoms merely appear locally. Therefore, the most ideal treatment should combine systemic and local therapy. Local therapy is characterized by rapid effect and precise location; systemic therapy, though slower, has a broad scope of action. Combining the two can further improve the speed and effective rate of treatment.