subject: Cancer Alternative Therapies [print this page] The Cancer Alternative Treatment Techniques
Alternative cancer treatments describe alternative and complementary treatments for cancer that have not been approved by the government agencies critical to the regulation of therapeutic goods. They include diet & exercise, chemicals, herbs, devices, & manual procedures. One may have some many choices to generate about a cancer treatment.
One choice might be thinking about is complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). CAM is the idea for medical products & practices that are not part of standard care.
CAM treatments dont work for everyone, but some strategies like acupuncture might guidance with nausea, pain & other unwanted side effects of cancer treatment. Generally, researchers know more about the protection and effectiveness of standard cancer treatments when compared with they do about CAM.
Current cancer treatments are going to be as follows:
Surgery
Radiation therapy
Chemotherapy
Hormone therapy
Immunotherapy
Surgery may be the oldest and most widely used treatment available for cancer patients. About 60 percent of people diagnosed with cancer will certainly undergo surgery. In radiation therapy, the specific part of the body containing a cancerous growth is exposed to radiation energy to attack reproducing cancer cells. However, the radiation cannot affect the cancer cells without affecting normal cells, which sometimes lead to several unpleasant side effects. Chemotherapy, the treatment of cancer through drugs, can be an effective treatment method for fighting cancerous cells that have spread to other parts of the body. Hormone therapy entails anything that deals with manipulating the body's hormones to treat the cancer. Immunotherapy also manipulates the body's normal functions. During immunotherapy, patients are given medication to stimulate the body's immune system to attack cancerous cells. Alternative cancer treatments are going to be typically contrasted with experimental cancer treatments, that are treatments that experimental testing can be currently underway.
Cancer treatment therapies could be categorized widely into three groups:
alternative treatments offered as a substitute to standard medical treatment,
alternative treatments just as one addition to straightforward treatment,
Treatments proposed in the past which have been found in clinical trials to be useless and/or unsafe.
With modern mainstream treatments, just 34% of cancer patients die within 5 years. However, while generally prolonging life or else permanently curing cancer, best choice, mainstream forms of cancer treatment have unwanted side effects starting from unpleasant to fatal, & permanent cures are not guaranteed. These unintended effects as well as the uncertainty of success create appeal for alternative treatments for cancer, which purport to cause fewer unwanted effects or to improve survival rates.
Alternative cancer treatments have typically not undergone properly conducted, well-designed clinical trials, or the results have not been published as a result of publication bias (a refusal to publish results showing a treatment does not work). Among those which were published, the methodology is often poor. A 2006 systematic review of 214 articles covering 198 clinical trials of alternative cancer treatments concluded that almost none conducted dose-ranging studies, which can be necessary to ensure that the patients are being given a useful amount of the treatment.
Complementary & alternative cancer treatments tend to be grouped together, however this grouping is controversial. Definitions vary, but usually speaking, the same techniques which are called "complementary" when given alongside mainstream treatments are going to be "alternative" when they are not.
