Reading the Evolutionary History of the Woolly Mammoth in Its Mitochondrial Genome

The use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) among cancer patients is widespread and appears to be increasing. However, it is not clear whether patients use CAM as an 'alternative' to standard oncology care or as an adjunct to the conventional treatment they receive. This study reviews the role of CAM therapies in the management of cancer, from the view of both patients and health professionals and it highlights issues relating to the efficacy of CAM used by cancer patients. Most patients use CAM to 'complement' the conventional therapies of radiotherapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy and surgery. Health professionals in general have expressed positive views when CAM is used 'complementarily' and not as an 'Alternative'. Results so far published have shown that CAM can contribute to improving the quality of life of cancer patients and their general well-being. Background Many cancer patients have turned to Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) with the hope of finding a cure to their illness as well as to make them feel better. Surveys on the use of CAM by cancer patients have been reported as high as 64% and as low as 7% [1]. As the use of CAM with cancer patients increases, the concern for its efficacy and safety with cancer patients has also increased [2,3]. In spite of the mass use of CAM therapies, very little is known of the efficacy and safety of many of the CAM therapies that cancer patients use. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is defined by the Cochrane collaboration as:" a broad domain of healing resources that encompasses all health system, modalities, and practices and their accompanying theories and beliefs, other than intrinsic to the politically dominant health systems of a particular society or culture in a given historical period" [4]. However, the National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM 2006) in America defines CAM as "a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine" [5]. The definition given by Cochrane emphasises healing resources together with its beliefs and theories, while NCCAM talks about systems, practices and products outside conventional medicine. A more recent definition of CAM adapted by the Cochrane School of Complementary medicine is: " diagnosis, treatment and/or prevention which complements main stream medicine by contributing to a common whole, by satisfying a demand not met by orthodox methods or by diversifying the conceptual framework of medicine". Ernst and Cassileth favour this definition because it sees CAM as Published: 30 April 2007 International Seminars in Surgical Oncology 2007, 4:10 doi:10.1186/1477-7800-4-10 Received: 18 February 2007 Accepted: 30 April 2007 This article is available from: http://www.issoonline.com/content/4/1/10 © 2007 Adams and Jewell; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.