Cancer patients often suffer from physical pain by cancer itself and side effects of anticancer drugs. Also, they suffer from psychological, social and spiritual pain. To get rid of such pain, it is important to deal with this total pain.
We are conducting research from the basics to clinical practice to improve the quality of life of cancer patients. If there is no drug that can relieve the patient's symptoms, it is necessary to develop new drugs or apply an existing drug to other symptoms, so called drug-repositioning. Among them, we are focusing on "Japanese Kampo medicines" introduced from China and developed according to the constitution of Japanese people. We now are conducting research to improve side effects that occur with anticancer drugs by using Kampo medicines as drug-repositioning.
Cancer patients who receive anti-cancer drugs or radiation therapy frequently develop stomatitis. This stomatitis adversely affects the basic life of "eating, drinking, and speaking." In basic research and clinical trials, we have shown that one of the Kampo medicine hangeshashinto promotes early treatment of stomatitis basically scientific evidence-mediated manner.
Medical staff such as doctors, pharmacists and nurses want to employ drugs with scientific evidence. On the other hand, patients also want to use "drugs that have been found to be effective." If a nurse working at front line of patients can tell the patients exactly why the drug works and why it is needed, and if the results can be scientifically fed back, the palliative care team contributes to patients.
Today, I would like to highlight the "a Kampo medicine used for stomatitis" and introduce the importance of understanding scientific mechanism of action of drugs and communicating them accurately and gently to cancer patients.