Cutaneous Carcinoma Treatments by Topical Chinese Herbal Medicine

Received: 17 November, 2015 Accepted: 10 March, 2016 Published: 20 December, 2016 In the treatment of malignant skin cancer, topically administered traditional Chinese medicines not only exert dispersing effect directly on the cancerous lesion, but also reduce the cancer-related pain. The common single-ingredient formulations included Toad venom and Rhizoma Bletillae. There were many effective multiple-ingredient formulations for skin cancers. They were Golden powder, Tri -ingredient Spear, Toad venom cream, Xanthium sibiricum Patrin ex Widder cream, Five-smoke pellets and Five-tiger pellets. Topically administered traditional Chinese medicines provides advantages of no scarring and no affect on appearance, when compared to routine surgical treatment. Temporary application on local skin is even safer. The skin cancer lesion is located superficially, and is easily accessible as compared to other tumor tissues, and thus is particularly suitable for topical transdermal dosing. Not only does such application better target the lesion and result in higher tumor cell cytotoxicity, but also avoid the toxic and side effects that could be caused by systemic therapy. In the future, the advanced pharmaceutical techniques, such as nano technology, slow-release and controlled release should be applied to develop topically administered preparations with high efficacy and low toxicity for skin cancer. © 2016 PSCI Publisher All rights reserved.