Traditional Chinese Medicine in Febrile Neutropenia Treatment: Advances and Prospects

Abstract

Febrile neutropenia (FN) is one of the acute and serious complications of chemotherapy-induced myelosuppression in tumor patients. Antibiotics and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor are the mainstays of its treatment. However, this therapy still faces many challenges and may trigger drug resistance, as well as adverse effects such as bone pain and vasculitis. How to minimize treatment-related toxicity while ensuring therapeutic efficacy has become a key issue to be addressed in current clinical practice. In recent years, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has demonstrated unique advantages in the prevention and treatment of FN. We conducted a comprehensive search of the PubMed, Web of Science, and CNKI databases using keywords such as TCM and FN, covering the period from their establishment to May 2025. Clinical studies have shown that the combination of TCM and modern medicine can significantly reduce the incidence of FN, while also enhancing the number of granulocytes, shortening the duration of fever, improving the quality of life of patients, and reducing other toxic effects of chemotherapy. These results suggest that TCM is a promising and safe complementary therapy. However, more high-quality trials are needed to verify its benefits. This review summarizes the latest progress in the treatment of FN with TCM and discusses future development directions.

Keywords

Traditional Chinese medicine / Febrile neutropenia / Efficacy / Safety / Ad-vance / Prospect

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Figdraw.

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Public Welfare Research Institutes (No. ZZ14- YQ-013); the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2023YFC3503300 and No. 2023YFC3503301); and the High-Level Chinese Medical Hospital Promotion Project (No. HLCMHPP2023034 and No. HLCMHPP2023085).

Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest related to this publication.

Author contributions

Conceptualization (KDC, WH, XQW), data curation (KDC), formal analysis (KDC), investigation (KDC, JKW), project administration (KDC, WH, XQW), visualization (KDC, JKW), resources (WH, XQW), supervision (WH, XQW), writing - original draft (KDC, JKW, JWW, SWA, DWA, SHH, BJF, LXZ, XQW), writing - review and editing (KDC, JKW, JWW, SWA, DWA, SHH, BJF, LXZ, WH, XQW). All authors made significant contributions to this work and approved the final manuscript.

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