Alternative medicine associated with worse survival in cancer

Patients who chose alternative medicine as their sole cancer therapy had a greater risk for death than those who used conventional cancer treatments, study data showed.

“Delay or refusal of conventional cancer treatment, when done in favor of alternative medicine, may have serious survival implications for cancer patients,” Skyler B. Johnson, MD, who is completing residency training in radiation oncology at the Yale School of Medicine, and colleagues wrote. “However, there is limited research evaluating the use and effectiveness of alternative medicine, partly due to data scarcity or patient hesitance to disclose nonmedical therapy to their providers.”

The researchers used the National Cancer Data Base to identify 280 patients with breast, prostate, lung or colorectal cancer who used alternative medicine instead of conventional therapies and matched them with 560 patients who used chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery and/or hormone therapy. Median follow-up was 66 months.

Increased likelihood of using alternative medicine appeared among patients with lung (OR = 3.16; 95% CI, 1.85-5.4) or breast cancer (OR = 2.56; 95% CI, 1.4-4.68), higher education levels (OR = 1.46; 95% CI, 1.02-2.09), those who lived in the Pacific (OR = 3.16; 95% CI, 2.10-4.74) or Intermountain West (OR = 3.09; 95% CI, 1.81-5.29) regions, had stage II (OR = 3.31; 95% CI, 2.21-4.95) or stage III (OR = 3.87; 95% CI, 2.47-6.07) disease and a lower comorbidity score.

After matching, use of alternative medicine appeared independently associated with greater overall risk for death than conventional cancer therapy (HR = 2.5; 95% CI, 1.88-3.17), as well as in subgroups of patients with breast cancer (HR = 5.68; 95% CI, 3.22-10.04), lung cancer (2.17; 95% CI, 1.42-3.32) and colorectal cancer (HR = 4.57; 95% CI, 1.66-12.61).

“We found that cancer patients who initially chose treatment with alternative medicine without conventional cancer therapy were more likely to die,” the researchers wrote. “Improved communication between patients and caregivers and greater scrutiny of the use of alternative medicine for the initial treatment of cancer is needed.” – by Andy Polhamus

Disclosures: Johnson reports no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the full study for a list of all other researchers’ relevant financial disclosures.