CASE REPORT article
Front. Med.
Sec. Pulmonary Medicine
This article is part of the Research TopicTranslational Strategies for Chronic Lung Diseases: Emerging Therapies and Precision MedicineView all 10 articles
Using Supplementary Formula of Qing-Hao-Bie-Jia Decoction for Defervescence of Lung Cancer-related Fever: A Literature Review and Case Report
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shanghai Beizhan Hospital, Shanghai, China
- 2Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China
- 3Shanghai Municipal Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, China
- 4China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
- 5Jiangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nanchang, China
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ABSTRACT Introduction: Cancer-related fever is a common complication of lung cancer, with an impact on patients' quality of life. Recently, Qing-Hao-Bie-Jia Decoction (QHBJD), as a representative Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) formula historically prescribed for endogenous heat with syndrome of Yin deficiency leading to internal heat, has been increasingly applied to the treatment of patients with lung cancer-related fever (LCRF). And our investigation endeavored to establish a chain of evidence bridging classical TCM theory and contemporary clinical practice, towards application of QHBJD in treating LCRF, as a methodological reference in the real-world setting. Methods: Our study was made up of 3 parts: 1) Ancient origins of QHBJD from premodern Chinese medical texts; 2) Systematic review of QHBJD-for treating LCRF from published cases reports; 3) A case report treated with QHBJD-SF from our clinical practice. Results: From our findings, "latent heat in the Yin" is the predominant pathogenesis of cancerous fever among lung cancer patients, which are mainly treated with therapeutic principle of nourishing Yin and outthrusting heat. Besides, the pathogenesis of included LCRF case reports is complicated, but TCM practitioners can support vital-qi and eliminate pathogenic factors by flexibly adding or subtracting Chinese medicines based on QHBJD for treatment. Conclusions: In this work, we established a methodological framework merging QHBJD-SF for treatment of lung cancer-related fever ancient and modern evidence based on case reports, which prospectively aids future TCM studies in enhancing certainty of same evidence from empirical medicine to evidence-based medicine.
Keywords: Cancer-related Fever, case report, lung cancer, Qing-Hao-Bie-Jia Decoction, Traditional Chinese Medicine
Received: 02 Oct 2025; Accepted: 12 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Chu, Zhang, Luo, Yang, Lv, Zhou and Han. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Bin Luo
Zixin Han
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