Traditional Chinese Medicine and Oncology: An Overview

When I was training at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, I had the opportunity to learn from Professor Daihan Zhou, a nationally recognized master of Traditional Chinese Medicine and a specialist in oncology.

He consistently emphasized that Traditional Chinese Medicine is fundamentally a system for treating disease — not merely for “wellness adjustment” or general conditioning.

However, in today’s oncology practice, TCM is mostly used as supportive care. For many cancer patients, we mainly treat the side effects of cancer treatments rather than the tumor itself.

These include chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV), chemotherapy-induced myelosuppression, radiation-induced xerostomia (RIX), endocrine therapy–induced hot flashes, and postoperative ileus (POI).

We also treat symptoms caused by the cancer itself, such as cancer-related insomnia (CRI) and cancer-related fatigue (CRF).

In the next few articles, I will share the treatment methods I use and some real cases from my clinical work.