Translocation affecting sonic hedgehog genes in basal-cell carcinoma.

The Author Replies: Although medical practitioners may possess the sophistication to distinguish among complementary, integrative, and alternative therapies, the average patient is unfortunately not as health-literate. Time and again, and nowhere more than in the field of oncology, the patients who turn to alternative therapies are those who eschew conventional treatment and feel that alternative treatments are safer or better. To these patients, alternative therapies are rarely presented as an aid for symptom management, but rather as an easy cure for cancer. My Perspective article does not seek to criticize practitioners who promote integrative medicine as a useful adjunct to conventional therapy in selected patients. Rather, it is meant to raise the alarm about the growing spread of unscrupulous practitioners who comfortably prey on some of the sickest and most vulnerable patients in the community. In doing so, they cause not only financial but also physical and emotional harm. They also damage the reputation of their own colleagues who are interested in genuine means of alleviating the burden of suffering.