Tips for treating glioma with traditional Chinese medicine

We all know that gliomas are generally treated with Western medicine, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, etc. In fact, Chinese medicine also has a certain effect on gliomas. We can also go to the hospital to get some Chinese medicine to take. What are some tips for treating gliomas with Chinese medicine? Let’s take a look!

Gliomas mostly grow in the cerebral hemispheres, ventricular system and even brain stem. The growth characteristics of gliomas are infiltrative growth, with no obvious boundary with normal brain tissue, and they cause great damage to brain tissue. Benign ones grow slowly and have a long course of disease, with an average of 2 years from the onset of symptoms to medical treatment. Malignant ones grow fast and have a short course of disease, with most cases within 3 months from the onset of symptoms to medical treatment, and 70% to 80% within half a year. At present, the treatments for gliomas at home and abroad are generally surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, X-knife, gamma knife, traditional Chinese medicine treatment, etc.

Theoretically, it is impossible to completely remove gliomas by surgery. Some tumors growing in important parts such as the brainstem cannot be operated on at all. Therefore, the purpose of surgical treatment is to: clarify the pathological diagnosis, reduce the volume of the tumor, reduce the number of tumor cells, improve symptoms, relieve high intracranial pressure; prolong life and create opportunities for other subsequent comprehensive treatments; obtain tumor cell dynamics data to provide a basis for finding effective treatments. Radiotherapy: Radiotherapy is almost a routine treatment for all types of gliomas, but the evaluation of efficacy varies. Except for medulloblastoma, which is highly sensitive to radiotherapy, and ependymoma, which is moderately sensitive, other types are not sensitive to radiotherapy. In addition, the impact of radiation-induced radiation necrosis on brain function should not be underestimated. Chemotherapy: In principle, it is used for malignant tumors, but chemotherapy drugs are limited to the blood-brain barrier and adverse reactions of drugs, and the efficacy is not yet certain.

TCM treatment: Based on the physiological characteristics and development laws of brain gliomas, such as heterogeneity, mutation, and metastasis, a combination of modern medicine and traditional Chinese medicine is used to promote Chinese medicine to pass through the blood-brain barrier and enter the brain, penetrate the tumor tissue, and block the blood circulation of the tumor tissue, so that normal brain cells are orderly arranged and directly enter the tumor to play a role in phagocytosis and elimination, improve brain microcirculation, enhance blood oxygen metabolism, soften and shrink the lesions. Different treatment methods are used according to different conditions, and staged treatment is carried out according to symptoms, which can improve patients' resistance to disease, inhibit tumor growth, and relieve or eliminate symptoms. It is suitable for patients before surgery or after partial surgical resection, postoperative recurrence, X-knife, gamma knife, and radiotherapy and chemotherapy, especially for headaches, nausea and vomiting, tinnitus, limb numbness, convulsions, mental disorders, blurred vision, and double vision caused by gliomas.

Ginsenoside Rh2 is highly fat-soluble and has few hydroxyl groups. It is also a small molecule, so it is easier for it to pass through the lipophilic endothelial cell membrane to reach the brain tissue and exert its tumor-inhibiting effect more quickly. Therefore, compared with many drugs for treating glioma, ginsenoside Rh2 has the great advantage of being able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier, with high bioavailability and good absorption. In addition, ginsenoside Rh2 is naturally non-toxic, which can reduce the toxic side effects of chemotherapy drugs and help patients improve their own immunity.

The invasive growth of glioma is a complex process that involves multi-step and multi-stage interactions between tumor cells and their extracellular matrix components. Ginsenoside Rh2 is a natural ingredient extracted from ginseng. It is a small molecule substance and is fat-soluble and can easily pass through the blood-brain barrier. Experiments have also confirmed that ginsenoside Rh2 can inhibit the growth of gliomas in vivo and prolong the survival time of tumor-bearing mice.

The effect of ginsenoside Rh2 on the proliferation of C6 glioma cells was observed experimentally. The results showed that ginsenoside Rh2 had an inhibitory effect on the proliferation of C6 glioma cells, and it showed an obvious dose-effect relationship; after the action of ginsenoside Rh2, the percentage of cells in the G0/G1 phase decreased significantly, while the percentage of cells in the S phase increased significantly. This shows that ginsenoside Rh2 has a significant inhibitory effect on the proliferation and induction of apoptosis of C6 glioma cells, and this effect is cycle-specific. Ginsenoside Rh2 can easily pass through the blood-brain barrier, so it can also be used in combination with other cell cycle-specific drugs to improve the chemotherapy effect of glioma.

Cell apoptosis is an active physiological process, just like the blooming and falling of flowers, which ultimately achieves a healthy balance in the human body. Although the causes of glioma are complex, the root cause is the disruption of the balance of cell apoptosis, which leads to abnormal cell proliferation. Experiments have confirmed that the balance messenger ginsenoside Rh2 can penetrate the blood-brain barrier, induce apoptosis of glioma cells, and restore normal cell proliferation, thereby effectively treating glioma.