The type of Traditional Chinese Medicine syndrome predicts prognosis and chemotherapeutic outcomes in colorectal cancer

Abstract Introduction Identifying and targeting patients who can benefit from an intervention by determining the prognostic factors is increasingly important if effective healthcare is to be provided. The study analyzed whether Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) syndrome differentiation could be used to determine prognosis and chemotherapeutic efficacy in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. Methods A total of 470 patients registered on the CRC database between 2006 and 2010 and with detailed clinical data were categorised according to TCM syndrome differentiation. Patients with CRC were divided into spleen deficiency syndrome, stagnation of cold-heat syndrome, stasis position resistance syndrome, spleen-kidney yang deficiency syndrome, liver-kidney yin deficiency syndrome, dual deficiency of qi and blood syndrome. Kaplen-Meier method was used to calculate the cumulative survival curve of TCM syndrome types and the COX regression analysis further analyzed the correlation between TCM syndrome types and prognosis and chemotherapeutic efficacy. Results The survival rate of patients with deficiency syndrome was higher than that of patients with excess syndrome, and the survival rate of patients with dual deficiency of qi and blood syndrome was higher than other types. The COX regression analysis model, single factor and multi-factor analysis confirmed that TCM syndrome type was an independent factor in predicting the prognosis of patients with CRC; excess syndrome patients can significantly prolong their overall survival through postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy. Conclusions The prognosis of CRC patients with deficiency syndrome was better than patients with excess syndrome. Patients with excess syndrome could benefit from postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy. Moreover, patients with deficiency syndrome have the best prognosis among the six TCM syndrome types.