Traditional Chinese medicine in treatment to lung cancer related insomnia

Objective To evaluate the effect of the method of yang yin yi qi an shen among the qi yin liang xu non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC) insomniacs. Methods We selected 90 qi yin liang xu NSCLC insomniacs from Navy General Hospital from November 2015 to December 2016, and they were randomly divided into two groups: the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) group in which patients were treated with Bai He Gu Jin Tang combined with Huang Lian E Jiao Tang for two weeks, and the western medicine (WM) group in which patients were treated with zolpidem for two weeks.Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) was recorded and sleep quality was monitored by Actiwatch before the treatment, at day 7 and day 14 during treatment, at day 14 after treatment. Results In total 85 patients completed our study.On the 14th day of treatment, the effective rate (TCM Group: 69.8% vs WT Group: 69%), PSQI score(TCM Group: 8 vs WT Group: 7.5), sleep duration (TCM Group: 7.1 h vs WT Group: 6.6 h) between the two groups had no statistically signi ficant difference.But patients in traditional medicine group had signi ficantly greater onset latency than those in western medicine group (38 min vs 29 min, P＜ 0.05).On the 14th day after drug withdraw, the effective rate in traditional medicine group decreased to 55.8%, while that in western medicine group decreased to 26.2% (P＜ 0.05).Besides, patients in traditional medicine group had signi ficantly lower PSQI score (9 vs 10.5, P＜ 0.05) and longer sleep duration (6.4 h vs 5.8 h, P＜ 0.05).The length of onset latency between the two groups showed no signi ficant difference. Conlusion It's effective to treat insomnia with the method of yang yin yi qi anshen by using Bai He Gu Jin Tang combined with Huang Lian E Jiao Tang among NSCLC patients.Bai He Gu Jin Tang combined with Huang Lian E Jiao Tang can lengthen the sleep duration, which is also showed by zolpidem.Bai He Gu Jin Tang combined with Huang Lian E Jiao Tang is less effective than zolpidem in reducing the time of onset latency, however, its effect lasts longer than zolpidem.