by Bob Flaws

On pages 21-22 of issue #8, 2008 of Xin Zhong Yi (New Chinese Medicine), there is an article titled “Observations on the Relationship between Breast Cancer MRI Images & Chinese Medical Patterns” by Huang Yong et al.

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The authors of this article all work in the radiology department at the No. 1 Affiliated Hospital of the Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine & Pharmacology. In this study, there were 31 patients with breast cancer confirmed by either surgery or needle biopsy. All these patients were between 33 and 57 years of age, with an average age of 42.6 years. In 14 cases, the cancer was right-sided, and, in the other 17 cases, it was left-sided. These patients had suffered from breast cancer from one day to three years, with an average disease duration of 6.5 months. Using standard professional Chinese medical pattern discrimination, three patterns were identified among these 31 cases: 19 cases of liver depression qi stagnation, eight cases of loss of regulation of the chong and ren, and four cases of righteous vacuity with blazing toxins. In those cases presenting a pattern of liver depression qi stagnation, 63.5% had either lobular or irregular tumor masses, while the incidence of lobular or irregular tumor mass was 75% in those with loss of regulation of the chong and ren and 100% in those with righteous vacuity and blazing toxins. The incidence of tumor mass with spicules was respectively 21.1%, 37.5%, and 75% in these same three patterns. Further, the incidence of grade III severity and metastasis was highest in those with righteous vacuity and blazing toxins. Therefore, it was concluded that there is a definite correlation between TCM patterns, MRI images, grading, and metastasis in women with breast cancer.

Note: The incidence of speculated outgrowths around mammary carcinomas is directly related to axillary lymph node metastasis and cancer staging.

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