The Benefit of Enhanced Daycare of Traditional Chinese Medicine for Cancer Treatment Related Adverse Events: A Retrospective Study of Medical Records

Objective: Cancer patients undergo therapies that might lead to severe adverse events. The enhanced daycare of Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) we describe was intended to help cancer patients suffering from severe adverse events to obtain relief. We used the Taiwan brief version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events Version 4.0 (Taiwan brief version questionnaire of CTCAE) as a primary measurement to evaluate the efficacy of the enhanced day care of TCM. The secondary measurements were the Taiwanese version of the Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI-T) questionnaire and the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaire, which were used to quantify fatigue and quality of life (QOL), respectively. Methods/Design: This is a retrospective study of medical records. There were 401 patients treated with enhanced daycare of TCM from June 2017 to November 2019. Results: Among 22 common adverse symptoms in the Taiwan brief version questionnaire of CTCAE4.0, 14 symptoms achieved a significant improvement, and the change of the total scores was also statistically significant (P