Diets, minerals, vitamins, yoga, acupuncture, naturopathy, homeopathy … A new study, published in JAMA, has just shown that the use of complementary medicine was associated with a risk of death twice as high.
While the use of complementary therapies (diet, minerals, vitamins, yoga, acupuncture, naturopathy, homeopathy …) to treat cancer is on the rise in the United States, researchers wanted to assess their effectiveness, which does not had not been done so far. “Although these therapies can be used to help patients with symptoms due to cancer treatment, they appear to be marketed or considered to be effective cancer treatments,” says Dr Skyler Jonhson of the medical school. by Yale.
Refusal of conventional cancer treatments
However, the study, published in JAMA, has just shown that the use of complementary medicine was associated with a risk of death twice as high. Patients who make this choice generally refuse conventional cancer treatments (surgery, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, radiotherapy).
The patients selected to constitute the cohort had breast, prostate, lung or non-metastatic colorectal cancer, all diagnosed between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2013. 258 patients (199 women and 59 men; mean age: 56) were in the alternative medicine group, and 1,032 patients (798 women and 234 men; mean age: 56) were in the control group.
Lower 5-year overall survival
Patients who used alternative medicine had rates of refusal of surgery (7.0% vs. 0.1 1%), chemotherapy (34.1% vs. 3.2), radiotherapy (53.0% vs. 2.3%) and hormone therapy (33.7% vs. 2.8%) higher than the patients in the control group. Alternative medicine was also associated with a lower 5-year overall survival than conventional cancer treatments (82.2% vs. 86.6%).
“It is important that patients considering them do not see them as an alternative to conventional treatments that have been shown in clinical trials to make a real difference to survival,” warns Martin Ledwick of Cancer Resarch UK. The authors also encourage physicians to discuss alternative therapies and the importance of conventional treatment with their patients.
.
