• CAM-summaries
• CAM systematic reviews
  • CAM for breast cancer
  • Laetrile
  • Patient-reported outcome research
  • Selenium for preventing cancer
  • Selenium for side effects
  • Thymus extracts
• CAM and the law
• Prevalence of CAM use

CAM for breast cancer

E Ernst, K Schmidt, M Baum.
Complementary/alternative therapies for the treatment of breast cancer. A systematic review of randomised clinical trials and a critique of current terminology.
Submitted for publication.

Objectives

To evaluate and critically analyse all randomised clinical trials (RCTs) of “alternative cancer cures�? (ACCs) for breast cancer.

Data sources

The electronic databases Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Allied and Complementary Medicine, Scirus, BIOSIS, CancerLit and CINAHL and for ongoing trials the MetaRegister at http://www.controlled-trials.com/ and the National Research Register at http://www.update-software.com/national/ were searched from their inception. Bibliographies of located studies were scanned. Unpublished or on-going trials were identified through correspondence with experts in the field. Our own files were handsearched for further RCTs.

Review Methods

Systematic review of RCTs involving breast cancer patients treated with ACCs. Survival, parameters indicative of tumour burden, disease progression, cancer recurrence, cancer cure. Results were tabulated and summarised.

Results

Thirteen RCTs met the inclusion criteria. In most cases their methodological quality is low, with only two RCT scoring ‘4’ and four RCTs scoring ‘3’ out of 5 possible points for methodological quality. The treatments tested included various methods of psychosocial support such as group support therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy cognitive existential group therapy, a combination of muscle relaxation training and guided imagery, the Chinese herbal remedy Shi Quan Da Bu Tang, thymus extract, transfer factor, melatonin and factor AF2. Encouraging but not fully convincing results emerged for melatonin.

Conclusion

The concept of an ‘alternative cancer cure’ is not a viable one. Due to the poor methodology and lack of RCTs in this field, studies included in this review have failed to demonstrate that any of the ACCs studied can prolong the life of breast cancer patients.