As Chinese medicine becomes more available as a system accessible to the general public, more and more people suffering with cancer are coming to utilize the rejuvenating effects of the Chinese herbal, acumoxa, dietary and qigong therapies to prolong life and aid in their recovery from this powerful illness. Although Chinese medicine has evolved primary treatments for the treatment of cancer, in this country there are still legal problems with this approach, and most western cancer patients at this time will choose to combine biomedical treatment with alternative therapies. Although a limited number of successes have been recorded with biomedical treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, time and research have shown limitations to success, and the search for better treatments and cures continues. Many forms of cancer, although proven to be unresponsive to chemotherapy, continue to be treated by this method. Often chemotherapy, surgery and radiation will cause damage to healthy as well as to diseased tissues, and weaken the immune system. This is where Chinese medicine can be very helpful.
The concept of "side effects" is not recognized as such in Chinese medicine. The toxic effects of certain medicinals is recognized according to degree, and if it is necessary to use a 'toxic' substance medicinally, it will be prepared in a special manner or combined with other medicinals to reduce or eliminate toxicity if possible. For example, fu zi/rx. aconiti is considered toxic, but it has a very strong medicinal power to mobilize and rescue yang qi to the spleen and kidney. It is usually combined in Chinese herbal prescriptions with sheng jiang/rx. zingiberis and gan cao/rx. glycyrhhizae to neutralize the toxic effect. Sometimes the principle of du yao gong xie/use toxin to attack pathogenic evil is used clinically; we can look at the modern use of chemotherapy according to this principle, if not in the degree of its clinical application in biomedicine. In Chinese medicine, it is considered unthinkable to damage the host or the zheng qi/correct qi in any clinical intervention.
