In a recent survey, 70% of cancer patients reported using complementary or alternative medicine as part of their cancer care.
About 30% of patients reported using complementary or alternative medicine as a cancer treatment, and about 27% of users reported that they had not told their oncologist that they were using complementary or alternative medicine.
These results were published in JCO Oncology Practice.
The survey was distributed across 2 cancer centers in the same city between 2020 and 2021. A total of 749 patients responded to the survey, which included questions about the use of complementary or alternative medicine, sources of information and trust of sources.
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The median age of the cohort was 63 years (range: 52-71), 51.8% were male, 94.8% were white, and 49.8% had metastatic disease. Patients had breast (22.7%), prostate (18.6%), colorectal (11.7%), skin (10.5%), lung (9.1%) cancer. or other cancers.
Cancer treatments included surgery (64.9%), chemotherapy (47.5%), radiotherapy (44.2%), and endocrine therapy (25.1%). A minority of patients reported not receiving any cancer treatment (3.1%). The median time from diagnosis to survey administration was 15 months (range: 6-36).
Use of complementary or alternative medicines
Overall, 70.2% of patients reported using complementary or alternative medicine (not including mind-body interventions) as part of their cancer care. Patients used complementary or alternative medicine to manage their symptoms (42.2%), treat their cancer (30.4%), improve their mental health (15.5%) or for other reasons (11 .8%).
Vitamin D was the most commonly used complementary or alternative medicine (32.1%), followed by fish oil (11.6%) and a vegetarian diet (6.1%).
Most patients (91.2%) reported using complementary or alternative medicine in addition to conventional medicine, but 27.1% of these patients did not discuss this with their treating oncologist.
Sixteen patients reported using complementary or alternative medicine to treat their cancer rather than conventional medicine, and 5 of these patients (31.3%) did not inform their treating oncologist.
Source of information
Most patients (n=624) reported receiving a recommendation or hearing about complementary or alternative medicine, most commonly vitamins/minerals (51.7%), herbs/supplements (43.8%), specific diets (39.5%) or mental therapies. bodily interventions (38.3%).
Of the 309 patients who reported how they learned about complementary or alternative medicine, 16.8% reported seeking information themselves, 36.6% reported receiving the information from someone else, and 46.6% reported both.
Sources of complementary or alternative medicine included close friends or relatives (52.8%), distant friends (28.5%), social media (25.9%), websites (25.2%) , support groups or other patients (22.7%), oncologists (17.8%). %), naturopaths (12.6%), other physicians (12.0%), news media (11.7%) and other sources.
Trust in sources
Most patients who used complementary or alternative medicine (86.6%) reported that they were somewhat or very likely to trust oncologists as a source of information.
Compared to patients who did not use complementary or alternative medicine, patients who did had higher rates of trust in chiropractors (P. =.002), support groups (P. <.002), close friends/family (P. =.002), and friends, associates or distant relatives (P. =.007).
In multivariate analysis, reliance on a nonmedical source of information about complementary or alternative medicine was significantly more likely among women than among men (odds ratio (OR), 1.75; 95% CI, 1 .01-3.03; P. =.05).
The analysis also showed that patients with a graduate degree were significantly less likely than patients without a college degree to trust a nonmedical source (OR, 0.32; 95% CI, 0. 19-0.53; P. <.01).
“Although patients most often heard about CAM (complementary or alternative medicine) from nonmedical sources, their trust in physicians remained high, regardless of the decision to use CAM,” the researchers wrote. “Our findings support the role of clinicians as trusted sources of information for patients and identify an important opportunity to address misinformation related to cancer treatment.”
Disclosures: Some study authors have declared affiliations with biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and/or device companies. Please see the original reference for a complete list of disclosures.
Reference
Hutten RJ, Weil CR, King AJ, et al. Multi-institutional analysis of cancer patient exposure, perceptions and trust in information sources regarding complementary and alternative medicine. JCO Oncol Pract. Published online September 18, 2023. doi:10.1200/OP.23.00179
