American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access originally published online on February 16, 2006
American Journal of Epidemiology 2006 163(7):645-653; doi:10.1093/aje/kwj087
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Original Contribution |
Association of Ginseng Use with Survival and Quality of Life among Breast Cancer Patients
1 Department of Medicine, Center for Health Services Research, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
2 Present affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN
3 Department of Epidemiology, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Shanghai, China
Correspondence to Dr. Xiao-Ou Shu, Department of Medicine, Center for Health Services Research, Medical Center East, Suite 6000, Vanderbilt University, 1215 21st Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37232-8300 (e-mail: Xiao-Ou.Shu{at}Vanderbilt.edu).
The authors evaluated the associations of ginseng use as a complementary therapy with survival and quality of life (QOL) in a cohort of 1,455 breast cancer patients who were recruited to the Shanghai Breast Cancer Study between August 1996 and March 1998 in Shanghai, China. Patients were followed through December 2002. Information on ginseng use before cancer diagnosis was collected at baseline recruitment and was linked to survival. Survivors' ginseng use after cancer diagnosis was obtained at the follow-up survey and was correlated to QOL at the same time. The Kaplan-Meier method and Cox regression models were applied to evaluate the association of ginseng use with overall and disease-free survival. The relation of ginseng use and QOL was evaluated by using multiple linear regression models. Approximately 27% of study participants were regular ginseng users before cancer diagnosis. Compared with patients who never used ginseng, regular users had a significantly reduced risk of death; adjusted hazard ratios associated with ginseng use were 0.71 (95% confidence interval: 0.52, 0.98) for total mortality and 0.70 (95% confidence interval: 0.53, 0.93) for disease-specific mortality/recurrence. Ginseng use after cancer diagnosis, particularly current use, was positively associated with QOL scores, with the strongest effect in the psychological and social well-being domains. Additionally, QOL improved as cumulative ginseng use increased.
breast neoplasms; complementary medicine; ginseng; quality of life; survival
Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; QOL, quality of life
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