subject: Many Brain Tumor Patients Turn to Alternative Therapies [print this page] Many Brain Tumor Patients Turn to Alternative Therapies
A large proportion of patients with brain tumors use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to supplement conventional treatment, a German study found.
Of more than 600 patients with gliomas from six German neuro-oncologic centers, 40.3% reported trying a CAM therapy, according to Oliver Heese, MD, of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, and colleagues.
The main motivation for use of CAM was not a distrust of evidence-based medicine, but a desire to support the standard treatments, the researchers reported in the Dec. 14 issue of Neurology.
"Neuro-oncologists should be aware of this phenomenon and encourage an open but critical dialogue with their patients," they wrote.
"Being aware of the patients' desire to seek alternative medicines, having an open approach, and encouraging the discussion of options may provide much-appreciated guidance in an environment where there are also dubious and sometimes extremely expensive treatments which are potentially harmful to the patient."
Because the vast majority of glial tumors are not curable, patients often search for alternative therapies to either treat the brain tumor or ease the associated symptoms.
But the extent of the use of CAM therapies in patients with brain tumors, the reasons for using them, and the costs have not been well studied.
So Heese and his colleagues sent questionnaires to 939 patients with glial tumors of WHO grades II to IV who were being treated by centers in the German Glioma Network; 621 (65.5%) responded. The patients have all received appropriate conventional therapies, including surgery, r Two-fifths of the respondents said they had used a CAM therapy at some point. The most common were homeopathy (39.2%), vitamin supplementation (31%), and various psychological methods (29%).
Rounding out the list of therapies used by at least 10% of the respondents -- in order of decreasing popularity -- were mineral supplementation, Boswelia acids, special diets, mistletoe, acupuncture, phytotherapy, shielding methods, and magic.
Most of the users (59.8%) thought their general condition had been improved by CAM therapies, and very few reported any side effects.
Users of CAM therapies were, on average, younger and more likely to be female and to have a higher education level.
"It appears remarkable that patients with a higher education level embark on and trust the mostly nonscientific explanations of alternative therapies, although this may also be out of curiosity," Heese and his colleagues wrote.
The choice to use a CAM therapy did not appear to relate to the level of satisfaction with care, as both users and nonusers reported similar rates of satisfaction with the information received from their neuro-oncologist (58.4% among users and 56.4% among nonusers).
When asked why they chose to pursue alternative treatments, more than 80% of users agreed with the following statements:
To support the conventional therapy
To build up body resistance
To do something for the treatment by myself
To have tried everything possible
The most common reasons for not trying CAM therapies were cost, a lack of information regarding the treatments, and missing scientific proof of efficacy.
