Complementary and alternative medicine use among cancer patients at a private hospital in Brazil.

Abstract

e14144 Background: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use is relatively common among cancer patients. Data regarding CAM use in Brazil is scarce. We sought to define CAM use by cancer patients and investigate factors that might influence it. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of adults diagnosed with any cancer type who came to appointments at our outpatient clinic in January 2020. Chi-square tests were used to investigate the association between CAM use and age and gender Results: We interviewed 156 patients who consented to the face-to-face interview and all of them completed the questionnaires. Most patients were between 51 and 70 years-old; 56% were female and 55% had their cancer diagnosed in the last 12 months. Most cancer types were breast (17.4%), colorectal (16.7%), and lung (16.1%). More than 90% of the participants were on any active treatment. The prevalence of current CAM use was 29.6%. 58.7% of the patients did not believe CAM has anti-cancer properties, including 32.6% of patients who reported CAM use. Two-thirds of the participants have never discussed about CAM with their oncologists. Only 5.1% of the respondents would abandon conventional cancer treatment in order to use just CAM. Among CAM users, 55% referred multiple therapies use. Of those therapies, spiritual surgery was the most prevalent one. There was a significant higher proportion of females reporting CAM use (p = 0,029) as well as a higher proportion of CAM use among younger patients (p = 0,008). Conclusions: CAM use was common among our study population, especially spiritual surgery. Women and younger patients were more prone to use CAM. Although most patients would not abandon conventional treatment, many of them have never discussed about CAM with their oncologists.

Discovering the Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Oncology Patients: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Herein, it was found that approximately 25%–80% of patients with cancer in the included 12 studies testified to the use of CAMs for the management of their cancer. The high prevalence of CAM use has been reported in recently published studies on CAM use among patients with different kinds of cancers [ 17 , 18 ].…”

“…Most of the patients did not discuss the use of CAMs to their healthcare providers [ 1 , 9 , 11 – 15 ]. The motivation for nondisclosure covered fear of a terrible reaction by their healthcare specialists, not being addressed regarding CAMs, and the perceived low knowledge of healthcare providers on CAMs, and thus there being no necessity to explore the topic with them [ 17 , 18 ].…”