By: Sanjukta Mondal
From: medicalxpress.com
The alternative medicine industry is expanding rapidly, fueled in large part by the surge of health-related content on social media. This growing trend has become an increasing concern for oncology practitioners and patients, as it can affect treatment decisions and trust in evidence-based care. The worry isn’t unfounded, as a recent study involving patients with breast cancer found that women who chose complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) instead of traditional cancer therapies had a higher risk of dying.
The researchers analyzed data of over 2 million breast cancer patients from a nationwide database. While those who chose CAM alone were very rare, those who did opt for it were about four times more likely to die than those who received conventional cancer treatments. Their survival chances were very similar to those of those who refused any form of treatment. The findings are published in JAMA Network Open.
A risky alternative path
After lung cancer, the second most diagnosed cancer among women is breast cancer. It is also the second highest in cancer-related deaths. Mammography screening, over the past few decades, has lowered breast-cancer deaths by about 20–30% because it helps detect cancer at an earlier stage, when cancer is less aggressive and easier to treat.
We have also seen rapid advancements in cancer treatments. Targeted therapies, such as drugs that act on hormone-sensitive breast cancer and treatments that target the HER2 protein, a protein that controls cell growth and division and can drive more aggressive tumor growth when overproduced, have significantly improved care. Together with many other therapies, these advances have helped lower the chances of cancer returning and increased the long-term survival rate.
Choosing CAM despite these medical advancements is not a new phenomenon, but its use is steadily increasing. More patients are turning to approaches such as acupuncture, dietary supplements, and mind-body practices.
As more patients turn to CAM, it becomes important to understand how these choices might affect survival in breast cancer.
This study set out to explore the question by comparing survival among patients who use conventional therapies vs. CAM. It is also the first study to closely examine outcomes in people who combined CAM with traditional treatments.
To get a clearer overall view of the trend, the team used the massive U.S. National Cancer Database (NCDB), which is a collection of records that captures about 70% of all new cancer cases in the country. They looked at the diagnosis data of women with breast cancer between 2011 and 2021.
The patients were divided into four groups based on their treatment choices: traditional therapies only, CAM only, combination treatment, and no treatment.
Less than 0.1% of the patients went for exclusively CAM, but it is associated with much lower five-year survival, about 60.1% compared with 85.4% for those receiving traditional treatment. Even combining CAM with standard therapy is linked to higher mortality, as women in this group were more likely to skip or refuse essential medical treatments like radiation or hormone therapy.
The researchers believe that the low reported use of CAM or combined therapy may partly reflect patients’ hesitation to discuss alternative approaches with their oncologists. Given the survival risks associated with opting for the alternative route, there is a clear need for open communication between patients and clinicians to ensure they are effectively counseled on the evidence, or lack thereof, for CAM treatments.
Barbara Jacoby is an award winning blogger that has contributed her writings to multiple online publications that have touched readers worldwide.