Title:Survival Benefits of Ganoderma Lucidum in Early-stage Triple-negative
Breast Cancer: A Real World Study
Volume: 19
Author(s): Baohong Jiang, Na Li, Wei Du, Lijun Zeng, Yuanbin Tang, Lunqi Luo, Hongbo Zhu and Feng Ye*
Affiliation:
- State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Guangdong Provincial Clinical Research Center for
Cancer, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, China
Keywords:
triple-negative breast cancer, Ganoderma lucidum spore powder, prognosis, propensity score matching
Abstract: Background: Ganoderma lucidum extracts are widely used as adjuvants in the
treatment of triple-negative breast cancers (TNBC) in China. However, its clinical value in
TNBC remains unclear. Therefore, we investigated the clinical effect of Ganoderma lucidum
spore powder (GLSP) on prognosis in patients with early-stage TNBC in this study.
Methods: A total of 388 patients who were diagnosed with TNBC at the Sun Yat-sen University
Cancer Center from February 2012 to December 2017 were retrospectively reviewed. The
propensity score matching (PSM) method was applied to balance baseline data. Kaplan-Meier
method and Cox proportional hazards model were used to evaluate the relationship between
GLSP and prognosis.
Results: Of the 388 patients, 72 (18.6%) patients took GLSP. After PSM, 208 patients were
selected for analysis, including 71 (34.1%) patients who took the powder. The median followup
period was 51 months. The patients who took GLSP (the treatment group) and those who did
not take GLSP (the control group) were similar in most clinico-pathological features before being
matched. However, the proportion of patients who received breast-conserving surgery in the
treatment group was higher (27.8% vs. 16.1%; p =0.021) than in the control group. No significant
difference was found in the baseline data between the two groups for the matched cohort
(all p >0.05). Univariate analysis and multivariate analysis showed that patients taking GLSP
benefited from improved overall survival (OS) (HR=0.159, p = 0.002) and disease-free survival
(DFS) (HR=0.232, p = 0.005) before being matched. The main result of the survival analysis
after matching was similar to that described above. Patients in the treatment group achieved
both greater OS and DFS benefits than patients in the control group (all p < 0.05). In stratified
analysis according to TNM stages, after adjusting for the significant prognostic factors, multivariate
analysis revealed that the treatment group had better OS than the control group for patients
in stages II and III (HR=0.172, p =0.004).
Conclusions: The results of this real-world propensity-score-matched study suggest that GLSP
can improve OS and DFS in early-stage TNBC patients. A higher OS was observed for patients
taking GLSP, particularly in stage II and stage III.
