THE EFFECT OF GINSENG ON THE POSTOPERATIVE NUTRITIONAL STATUS AND IMMUNE FUNCTIONS OF GASTRIC CARCINOMA PATIENTS

To find out the mechanisms of anticancer effect of ginseng, we performed prospective randomized study for the 39 patients with stomach cancer who had undergone radical subtotal or total gastrectomy and postoperative immunochemotherapy with PMF from July 1991 to November 1991 at Department of Surgery, Seoul National University Hospital. The patients were randomly divided into study and control group: the study group was administered with powdered red ginseng of 5400mg daily dose for 12 months postoperatively, the control group was simply followed-up. There were no significant differences between study and control group in twelve months postoperative body weights, triceps skin fold, hemoglobin. albumin, total protein, PNI, total WEC and lymphocyte count, and T-cell percentage (p>0.05). The results of preoperative DNCB skin test of study group was (0) for 8 patients and (+) for 12 patiens. but after operation, it showed the tendency of decreasing (0) and (+) ratio and increasing tendency of (++) ratio (p<0.05), but those of control group showed no increasing tendency of the degree of positive DNCB skin test. From the above results, we could conclude that ginseng had anti - cancer effect by the way of immune mechanism and could be an adjunct to the patients with stomach cancer postoperatively.