Gastric cancer is the fourth most common cancer and is the second leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Gastric cancer is usually in advanced stage at diagnosis, without opportunity for curative resection. Chemotherapy is the major treatment for advanced gastric cancer (AGC), and other treatments include palliative surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, biologic and immunologic therapy as well as Chinese medicine. Palliative therapy is used to reduce tumor load or complication occurrence, while radiotherapy is effective for locoregionally advanced gastdc cancer. At present, chemotherapy plays a leading role in AGC treatment and has a palliative effect on symptomatic patients. For advanced or metastatic gastric cancer, chemotherapy has always been the focus of studies. Results of studies of FAX, ECF/DCF regimens and Phrase ill clinical trials of REAL-2, ML17032 and SPIRITS have been released. With the application of EOX, XP, S-1/CDDP, IF, FOLFOX and XELOX regimens, the outcomes of advanced gastdc cancer are improved. However, there is no standard regimen accepted as supedor over others. Biologic and immunologic therapy are beneficial supplements to surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, but are not yet the mainstream. All of these treatments have obvious side effects. Other comprehensive methods are of equal importance, such as Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture and moxibustion, and psychological intervention. Combined with western medicine, the above methods have certain merits in relieving clinical symptoms, reducing toxicity,increasing effectiveness, improving quality of life, preventing metastasis and recurrence, reversing multidrug resistance of tumor cells, and curing ascites and managing cancer pain.

Objective To translate the findings from fundamental research into clinical application and to evaluate the clinical efficiency and safety of Fritillaria thunbergii Miq. granule as adjunctive means of chemotherapy during peri chemotherapy of refractory acute leukemia. Methods Patients in multiple hospitals were randomly divided into two groups with Fritillaria thunbergii Miq. granule treatment or synchronous control at three days before chemotherapy respectively, according to random approaches for medical treatment. The clinical therapeutic effects were then determined after one course of treatment. Results According to the research project, 138 patients were analyzed statistically, 72 in Fritillaria thunbergii Miq. granule group and 66 in control group. The complete remission rate (CR) of Fritillaria thunbergii Miq. granule group and control group were 36.8% and 25.8% respectively, while the total effects were 77.8% and 53.0%, which was significantly different (P