Gastric cancer is one of the common malignant tumors of the digestive tract

with a high incidence and fatality rate in China. Since it is difficult to be detected at early stages

most of the cases are already in the advanced stage when the diagnosis is made. However

the therapeutic effect for advanced gastric cancer is usually poor

and it is easy to progress and relapse

and the survival time is short. Prof. Liu Shenlin

laureate of the title of National Prestigious TCM doctor

is good at the treatment of spleen and stomach diseases

and has unique views on the treatment of advanced gastric cancer.He believes that advanced gastric cancer is mostly caused by lack of healthy qi enabling invasion of cancerous toxin

and weakness of the spleen and stomach leading to the loss of their function of controlling transportation and transformation

so that qi deficiency causes blood stasis. With time going by

the blood stasis and cancerous toxin bind with each other and give rise to the cancer.Hence

Prof. Liu proposed that

for advanced gastric cancer

the pathomechanism of which is spleen deficiency and stasis toxin

it is necessary to adopt the method of boosting qi and fortifying the spleen

dissolving stasis and removing toxin as the basic treatment principle.In addition

after the fundamental idea of treatment is decided based on pathogenesis

clinical differentiation and treatment should then start from the syndrome differentiation of

zang

-

fu

organs

combined with the syndrome differentiation of eight principles

emphasizing the holistic treatment

paying attention to the properties

tastes

and channel tropism of herbal ingredients

selecting drugs appropriately

using drugs carefully

so as to guarantee significant clinical efficacy.In this paper

we introduce Prof. Liu’s experience in the treatment of advanced gastric cancer in combination with a clinical case record.