Hydrogen Gas Shrinks Advanced Gallbladder Cancer in 72-Year-Old Woman
- Authors
- Ji-Bing Chen, Zhong-Bao Pan, Duan-Ming Du, Wei Qian, Yang-Yang Ma, Feng Mu, Ke-Cheng Xu
- Journal
- World Journal of Clinical Cases
- Year
- 2019
- DOI
- 10.12998/wjcc.v7.i15.2065
- Study Type
- Human
- Outcome
- Positive
- Peer Reviewed
- Yes
- Country
- China
- Health Condition
- Gallbladder Cancer
- Body System
- Digestive System
TL;DR
A 72-year-old woman with advanced gallbladder cancer showed improvement after inhaling hydrogen gas, despite other treatments failing.
Key Finding
A patient with metastatic gallbladder cancer who was unresponsive to standard treatments showed tumor shrinkage, correction of anemia, and clinical stability after three months of daily hydrogen gas inhalation therapy.
Summary
This report describes a single 72-year-old woman with advanced gallbladder cancer that had spread to her liver and lymph nodes and was not responding to standard treatments. After she began inhaling hydrogen gas daily, her tumors started to shrink over three months, her severe anemia improved, and she was able to return to normal activities. However, this is just one patient's experience, not a controlled study.
Practical Takeaway
While this single case report is intriguing, it provides very limited evidence. A single patient's response cannot establish whether hydrogen therapy actually caused the improvement or whether other factors were involved. Much larger, controlled studies would be needed before any conclusions could be drawn about hydrogen's effectiveness for cancer patients.
Abstract
Background: We present the case of a 72-year-old female patient with gallbladder cancer (GBC) who developed in situ recurrence and liver metastases 9 mo after irreversible electroporation ablation and oral tegafur (a fluoropyrimidine derivative) chemotherapy, which failed to control the progression of the disease. The patient further developed metastases in the lymph nodes around the head of the pancreas. The patient had severe anemia, requiring weekly blood transfusions. The gallbladder tumor invaded the descending part of the duodenum, causing intestinal leakage and hepatic colonic adhesion. Case summary: The patient refused other treatments and began daily hydrogen inhalation therapy. After 1 mo of treatment, the gallbladder and liver tumors continued to progress, and intestinal obstruction occurred. After continuous hydrogen therapy and symptomatic treatments including gastrointestinal decompression and intravenous nutrition support, the intestinal obstruction was gradually relieved. Three months after hydrogen therapy, the metastases in the abdominal cavity gradually reduced in size, her anemia and hypoalbuminemia were corrected, lymphocyte and tumor marker levels returned to normal, and the patient was able to resume normal life. Conclusion: This is the first report of an efficacy and safety study about hydrogen therapy in patient with metastatic GBC and a critical general condition, who has remained stable for more than 4 months.