Chinese Medicine and Breast Cancer

Excerpted from
Breast Cancer: Beyond Convention: The World's Foremost Authorities on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Offer Advice on Healing
By Mary Tagliaferri, M.D., L.Ac., Isaac Cohen, M.D., Debu Tripathy, M.D.

A few years ago, a woman in her early fifties came to see me, pathology report in hand. A mammogram had already revealed a i-centimeter lump in her breast, a palpable lymph node under her armpit, and a fine needle biopsy had confirmed a diagnosis of infiltrating ductal carcinoma-in other words, breast cancer. She had done extensive reading and discussed things with her physicians, who confirmed that she had time-meaning one month-to explore her alternatives before resorting to surgery. Intrigued by the possibilities of Chinese medicine, she asked whether I could treat her tumor with a noninvasive method.

Given the small size of the tumor, and the fact that there was little lymph node involvement and no evidence of metastasis, I agreed that it would be safe to delay conventional treatment methods for a few weeks and try herbal therapy and acupuncture. I did, however, explain to her that early intervention with Western medicine was the ideal route to achieve optimal results. Despite this advice from both her surgeon and me, she decided to try Chinese herbal medicine alone. I saw her monthly to evaluate her progress and make any necessary changes to her herbal prescription. After three months, in my opinion, her condition was the same. Since it wasn't good news but also wasn't bad news, my patient decided to continue. After an additional two months of treatment, we couldn't find the lymph node that was previously palpable under her armpit. The surgeon, however, thought that the tumor in her breast had increased in size. I was not sure that this was in fact the case but thought perhaps I was biased. With concern that the tumor had grown in size, both the surgeon and I strongly encouraged our patient to undergo surgery to remove the mass.

After the surgery, she was found to have no cancerous cells in her lymph nodes and no invasive ductal carcinoma. Her tumor had retreated to a small ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which means that there are cancerous cells but they are contained within the walls of the duct. The change in diagnosis from invasive cancer to DCIS indicated there was a lower probability that the mass would ever develop into invasive breast cancer or spread to a distant location.

The fate of our patient had changed dramatically.

About Traditional Chinese Medicine

While there are hundreds of anecdotal case reports of breast cancer cures after the use of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) as a sole therapy, there is not enough scientific evidence to justify the use of Chinese medicine to replace any of the current Western medical treatments: surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and hormonal therapy. There is no doubt, however, that Chinese medicine is useful in all stages of the disease to augment the benefits of conventional treatments, to prevent recurrence and metastasis in early stages of breast cancer, and to promote health, improve quality of life, and prolong life in advanced stages. TCM is an altogether different form of medicine, with its own unique ways of describing human physiology and pathology. It has over a million practitioners worldwide.

In this chapter, we will look at how TCM treatments are currently being used in an integrated setting along with Western methods to treat women with breast cancer. Later on, we'll explore some of the history and principles of this ancient tradition.

History of Breast Cancer in
Traditional Chinese Medicine

The development of a written medical system in China started sometime in the third or fourth century B.C., and reached a high degree of sophistication about 250 B.C. with the publication of the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine. This canon describes the processes that affect life and health and suggests treatment principles, with some specific acupuncture and herbal prescriptions. Chinese medicine has had many developments since that time. As a medical system, Chinese medicine exists as a continuous living tradition that has served and still serves a large part of the world's population.

The first government-sponsored medical university was formed in A.D. 453 by Qin Chengzu, the physician to the Southern and Northern dynasties. In the year 624, at the beginning of the T'ang dynasty, a very large medical school-for the first time with departments, faculties, and clearly defined curriculum-was established. The school even had eighteen hectares (about seven and a quarter acres) of herb gardens to help develop medical-agriculture specialists.

The book The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty (1100-400 B.C.) mentions physicians specializing in the treatment of "swellings and ulcerations" or "necrosis and ulcerations." Those terms persist to this day to denote the study and treatment of tumors both benign and malignant.

Early Chinese medical texts described different types of breast tumors and discussed their clinical appearance, physiological origin, and severity. Over a hundred names were recorded for tumors in early medical literature. Most of them signify what we would regard as early cancerous conditions. The most common term for breast cancer was "breast rock." In the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine we find the first clinical description of breast cancer. The prognosis was thought to be about ten years after diagnosis, and the process of metastasis and death was detailed.

Other than locations, tumors were classified according to their physical appearance (obstinate jaundice, callous lips, flower blossom lesions), the sensation under the physician's fingers (rock, walnut, movable/immovable), recurring symptoms the tumors may cause (loss of luster, food regurgitation, distention). Physicians based their clinical assessments on their analysis of the patient's history, breast examination, pulse palpation, and observation of the tongue as well as the skin of the inner corner of the eye.

Causes of Breast Cancer: The TCM View

Breast cancer in TCM is thought to be the product of a long accumulation of seemingly insignificant factors, which exert their effects for many years and slowly erode the body's ability to nurture, protect, and regulate itself. These effects may include environmental pollutants, climatic exposure, history of infectious diseases, availability of food (quantity), nutrient level in food (quality), dietary habits, mental and emotional attitudes, balance between work and rest, sexual life, inherited physiological makeup, and water balance and metabolism.

In TCM, breast cancer may result from the interaction of these factors over a long period of time. Each individual woman will have a different path to the initiation, formation, and development of her breast cancer. Each woman will also manifest the disease in a different way. TCM believes not only in a multitude of possible causes but also that breast cancer behaves uniquely in each woman.

The Chinese outlined and detailed a complex picture of the body consisting of tissues, organs, and blood vessels as well as a grid of network communication systems called meridians that intersect and interact with all other tissues and organs. The meridians and blood vessels were believed to supply all the nutrients that command and control the body to achieve continuous balance and harmony. The highly essential "stuff" that runs in the network vessels-and you'll see in a minute why I call it stuff-is called qi (pronounced "chee"). The Chinese accepted that although qi flows in a very precise lawful order, there may also be chaos caused by the complexity of life's conditions, which constantly change over time. They likened life to the movement of clouds and river water: you can identify it, but you can't make it stop moving and changing.

In Chinese medicine, two parallel systems are viewed in tandem. One is the picture of the perfect: an ultimate state of things and being, a picture of heavenly balance and harmony. The other is a description of the lawful deviation from the perfect. Since many factors are at play, the Chinese described those deviations in terms of patterns or syndromes. The more you probe into the pattern, the more accurately you can describe its details and dynamics.