Use of Alternative and Complementary Medicine by Colorectal Cancer Patients

Overview

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is defined by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine as "a group of diverse medical and health systems, practices and products that are not currently considered part of conventional medicine" (Complementary, Alternative, or Integrative Health, n. d. 2012). Complementary medicine is used to complement conventional medicine, and alternative medicine is used instead of conventional medicine (Dy et al., 2004). These are two very different approaches, whose consequences for a cancer patient can be completely different. The use of CAM is steadily increasing in most countries. A study carried out in France in 2017 revealed that for half of CAM users, the diagnosis of cancer was one of the main factors that led patients to turn to CAM (Sarradon-Eck et al., 2017). CAM use was found to be significantly associated with younger age, female gender and higher education (Sarradon-Eck et al., 2017). The source of information about MAC was mainly friends/family and the media, while doctors and nurses played a succinct role in MAC information (Molassiotis et al., 2005). The most frequently cited reasons for using CAM were to improve their physical well-being, strengthen their bodies, improve their emotional well-being and relieve the side effects of treatment (Sarradon-Eck et al., 2020). Another study carried out in 2019 at nine centers in France showed that 45% of glioma patients had changed their eating habits after glioma diagnosis, 44% were on complementary treatment, mainly vitamins and dietary supplements, and 32% were using alternative medicine, mainly magnetism and acupuncture. A total of 68% reported using at least one of these approaches (Le Rhun et al., 2019). Another single-center study conducted in France in 2019 found that 83% of cancer patients used CAM (M et al., 2019). CAM included osteopathy, homeopathy, acupuncture, therapeutic touch, magnetism, naturopathy, cupping, Chinese medicine, reflexology and hypnosis. However, no studies have been carried out to assess the use of CAM among colorectal cancer (CRC) patients in France.