Linba fang

Hi cere,

Thanks for posting your question. My name is Matthew, and I work as part of the Online Community Team. We're the team who work on supporting our Online Community to make sure it stays safe and working well.

Because your question relates to using a traditional Chinese herbal medicine as a potential part of your cancer care, I think it would be best answered by our medically-qualified Cancer Information Nurse Specialists. 

I have now moved your question over to our Ask a Nurse forum so that one of our Nurses can advise you further. The Ask a Nurse forum opens again from 9am on Monday, and so a member of our Nurse team will aim to respond within the next 1 to 3 working days.

If you need any help or support directly from Macmillan staff in the meantime, please don't hesitate to give our Macmillan Support Line a call. The Support Line teams can be reached on freephone 0808 808 00 00, and they're open from 8am to 8pm, 7 days a week.

My name is Joanne and I am one of the Cancer Information Nurses on the Macmillan Support Line.

I can see that you have joined our Lymphoedema forum. As this is one of our less active groups,  you may also want to have a look at some of our other cancer experience and cancer type forums for further information and support from others.

I’m sorry to hear that you are experiencing ongoing issues with Lymphoedema. This can be a challenging symptom to manage for some people and it is natural to want to consider options for management including Complementary and alternative therapies

From the information available, I wonder if the publication you refer to is this Study of Linba Fang as a treatment for lymphoedema in mice.

This paper appears to be widely referenced when searching for information on the subject.

The study outcomes appear to suggest that the use of Linba Fang results in some improvement to artificially created lymphoedema in the tails of the mice in the study, However, I am unable to find any other research relating to the use of Linba Fang in human subjects.

Studies in mice would not be considered sufficient evidence for use of drugs in humans and much more research may need to be carried out before safety and efficacy could be established in people. 

When considering issues including the Safety of complementary therapies , we would always suggest speaking to your healthcare team for advice.

As Linba Fang is a traditional Chinese medicine, it may be useful to speak to a practitioner in this field. You may wish to contact the British Society of Chinese Medicine for more information prior to speaking to your clinical team.

Lymphoedema Support Network  can also provide further advice and support on the management of lymphoedema and you may find it useful to search here for local support groups and services.

I hope this information is useful for you. Please do get back in touch for any further information and support.

Kind Regards

Joanne H

Ref JH/KDf