Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use by Patients Enrolled Onto Phase I Clinical Trials
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Numerous studies worldwide show that complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) are used by cancer patients undergoing conventional therapy. The purpose of this study was to measure the use of CAM among patients with advanced metastatic disease who were undergoing experimental chemotherapy trials. The researchers surveyed 108 patients and received 102 completed surveys showing that 90% of respondents used CAM along with the prescribed therapy. This result is consistent with other large scale studies. In this study, green tea, echinacea and essiac were the most popular non-pharmacologic CAM used by those surveyed. The authors conclude that CAM use is widespread and more research is needed. At the very least they recommend that practitioners document use of CAM by their patients to ultimately gain additional evidence.
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Published:
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Journal of Clinical Oncology Volume 22, Number 23, December 1, 2004; DOI 10.1200/JCO.2004.03.121
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Attribution:
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Grace K. Dy, Lishan Bekele, Lorelei J. Hanson, Alfred Furth, Sumithra Mandrekar, Jeff A. Sloan, and Alex A. Adjei
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