Hydrogen Gas Helps Lung Cancer Patients Tolerate Treatment Better
- Authors
- Ke-Cheng Xu, Ji-Bing Chen, Xiao-Feng Kong, Feng Mu, Tian-Yu Lu, You-Yong Lu
- Journal
- Medical Gas Research
- Year
- 2020
- DOI
- 10.4103/2045-9912.285560
- Study Type
- Human
- Outcome
- Positive
- Peer Reviewed
- Yes
- Country
- China
- Health Condition
- Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
- Body System
- Respiratory System
TL;DR
Inhaling hydrogen gas was found to help control tumor growth and reduce side effects of cancer treatments in patients with advanced lung cancer.
Key Finding
Patients with advanced lung cancer who inhaled hydrogen gas combined with standard cancer treatments showed better progression-free survival and significantly fewer medication side effects compared to control groups over 16 months of follow-up.
Summary
This study tested whether inhaling hydrogen gas could help advanced lung cancer patients tolerate their cancer medications better and slow tumor growth. Fifty-eight patients either received hydrogen inhalation (4-5 hours daily for up to 5 months) alone, or combined it with chemotherapy, targeted therapy, or immunotherapy. After 16 months, patients who received hydrogen combined with standard cancer treatments had better survival without cancer progression and experienced fewer medication side effects compared to those who didn't receive hydrogen.
Practical Takeaway
While this early-stage human study suggests hydrogen inhalation may help reduce side effects from lung cancer medications, the sample size was small (58 patients total) and the study design had limitations. More rigorous, larger clinical trials would be needed before hydrogen therapy could be recommended as a standard supportive treatment for cancer patients. Anyone with cancer should discuss any complementary therapies with their oncologist before use.
Abstract
Chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy are used against advanced non-small cell lung cancer. A clinically efficacious method for relieving the adverse events associated of such therapies is lacking. Fifty-eight adult patients were enrolled in our trial to relieve pulmonary symptoms or the adverse events of drugs. Twenty patients who refused drug treatment were assigned equally and randomly to a hydrogen (H2)-only group and a control group. According to the results of tumor-gene mutations and drug-sensitivity tests, 10, 18, and 10 patients were enrolled into chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy groups in which these therapies were combined with H2-therapy, respectively. Patients underwent H2 inhalation for 4–5 hours per day for 5 months or stopped when cancer recurrence. Before study initiation, the demographics (except for tumor-mutation genes) and pulmonary symptoms (except for moderate cough) of the five groups showed no significant difference. During the first 5 months of treatment, the prevalence of symptoms of the control group increased gradually, whereas that of the four treatment groups decreased gradually. After 16 months of follow-up, progression-free survival of the control group was lower than that of the H2-only group, and significantly lower than that of H2 + chemotherapy, H2 + targeted therapy, and H2 + immunotherapy groups. In the combined-therapy groups, most drug-associated adverse events decreased gradually or even disappeared. H2 inhalation was first discovered in the clinic that can be used to control tumor progression and alleviate the adverse events of medications for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Fuda Cancer Hospital of Jinan University on December 7, 2018 (approval No. Fuda20181207), and was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (Identifier: NCT03818347) on January 28, 2019.