Benefits of adjuvant treatment with the Pingxiao capsule in patients with early breast cancer: A single‑center retrospective cohort study

Wang,Shuo; Zheng,Caiwei; Zhao,Lei; Jiang,Haiyang; Zheng,Xinyu

doi:10.3892/ol.2024.14499

Benefits of adjuvant treatment with the Pingxiao capsule in patients with early breast cancer: A single‑center retrospective cohort study

Authors:
- Shuo Wang
- Caiwei Zheng
- Lei Zhao
- Haiyang Jiang
- Xinyu Zheng
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Affiliations: Department of Breast Surgery, The First Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning 110001, P.R. China, Department of Surgery, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA, Science Experiment Center, China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning 110122, P.R. China
Published online on: June 12, 2024 https://doi.org/10.3892/ol.2024.14499
Article Number: 366
Copyright: © Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License.

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Abstract

Early breast cancer (EBC) is cancer that has not spread beyond the breast or the axillary lymph nodes. The present retrospective cohort study investigated the efficacy and safety of the Pingxiao capsule (PXC), which contains a formula of traditional Chinese herbs, as adjuvant therapy in patients with EBC in a single Chinese academic medical center. Patients with EBC who had received surgery and chemotherapy were analyzed and divided into the PXC and non‑PXC groups. Disease‑free survival (DFS) time, overall survival (OS) time, demographic characteristics and adverse events were examined. Kaplan‑Meier survival curves were used to compare the differences in DFS and OS. A total of 371 participants with a median age of 54 years were included in this study. The median DFS time of all patients was 101 months. The overall DFS rate was 72.1% in the PXC group compared with 63.6% in the non‑PXC group. For women with hormone receptor‑negative tumors, the DFS rate in the PXC group was significantly higher than that in the non‑PXC group, irrespective of node status. Adjuvant treatment with PXC for ≥3 months was associated with significantly longer median DFS time compared with that in the non‑PXC group. In addition, the incidence of neutropenia rated to be grade 2 or higher was significantly lower in the PXC group compared with that in the control group, and a markedly, but non‑significantly, lower prevalence of nausea was observed in PXC group (0 vs. 4.1%). In conclusion, PXC as an adjuvant therapy along with chemotherapy is associated with prolonged DFS times in patients with EBC when compared with chemotherapy alone. The therapeutic value of combined PXC and systemic chemotherapy should be further elucidated by rigorous prospective clinical trials.

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