Saturday November 10 08:26 AM EST
By Alexa Pozniak
Complementary treatments may make kids with cancer feel better.
Many children with cancer are being treated with both traditional and nontraditional forms of medicine, cancer experts report.
Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center interviewed the parents of 75 pediatric cancer patients, from newborns to 18-year-olds, in western Washington state. They found that nearly three-quarters use "complementary" medicine both to treat the disease and to cope with uncomfortable symptoms brought on by standard treatments such as chemotherapy.
Complementary medicine usually includes therapies considered to be nontraditional by U.S. medical standards, such as acupuncture, massage, dietary supplements and "other" therapies that are physical, spiritual and mental.
The use of complementary medicine is well-known among adult cancer patients, but this is the first population-based study in the United States to look at children who use it. The findings are reported in this month's issue of Preventative Medicine .
"Many of the side effects, such as nausea, are related to the toxicity of the chemotherapy," says Dr. David S. Rosenthal, director of the Zakim Center for Integrative Therapy at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
"Acupuncture is one of the greatest treatments for this. Mind-body techniques and music therapy are also effective in reducing other common side effects such as pain and discomfort," Rosenthal says. "Scientists will say 'show me evidence that this works,' but we don't know the mechanisms of how these treatments work."
"We wanted to find out what types of treatments are being using in children," says Marion Neuhouser, lead author and senior scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.
Not a Replacement
Rosenthal believes most complementary approaches can be very beneficial, but warns they should not take the place of a cancer patient's primary treatment.
"Integrating complementary therapy programs like mind-body, acupuncture, reike, music therapy, at the same time as conventional therapies is helpful," he says. "However, it is not an alternative to conventional therapy. If the patients are using herbs instead of chemotherapy to treat the cancer, then that's a different story."
Neuhouser says misconceptions surround the use of alternative medicine. "Some people mistakenly think that those who gravitate toward alternative treatments abandon medicine completely. In fact, most patients in this study use both complementary and traditional treatments, most of which are quite good."