Effects of Traditional Chinese Medicine on the survival of patients with stage I gastric cancer and high-risk factors: a real-world retrospective study.

Objective: To investigate the benefits of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) therapy for improving the survival of patients with stage I gastric cancer (GC) and high-risk factors in a real-world setting.

Methods: The clinical data of patients who were diagnosed with stage I GC from March 1, 2012 to October 31, 2020 were collected. Prognostic analysis was performed to explore the high-risk factors that affected the survival of the patients. A Cox multivariate regression model was used to compare the hazard ratios for the mortality risk of patients, especially those with high-risk factors. Kaplan-Meier survival curve and log-rank test were utilized to assess the survival time.

Results: Prognostic analysis demonstrated that female sex, tumor invasion into blood vessels, and Ib stage were independent risk factors. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival rates of the TCM group those of the non-TCM group were 100.0% 91.0%, 97.6% 64.5%, and 81.4% 55.5%, respectively. A significant difference in median overall survival (mOS) was found between the two groups (χ = 7.670, = 0.006). Subgroup analysis showed that the mOS of female patients and stage Ib patients in the TCM group were longer than those in the non-TCM group ( ≤ 0.001 and 0.001, respectively).

Conclusions: TCM treatment can improve the survival of patients with stage I GC and high-risk factors.