Complementary and Conventional Medicine Go Hand-In-Hand

Michael Lerner, PhD

Is it worth your time and energy to try a complementary therapy treatment for cancer? The decision is highly personal, but the question is worth considering as you take charge of your journey toward healing.

Complementary therapies, also known as alternative or adjunctive therapies, are best used to complement, not replace conventional medical treatment. In fact, among complementary therapies,there are no known systematically curative treatments for cancer. If a conventional cancer treatment exists that cures any form of cancer, I always strongly encourage patients to use it – and use it promptly. Because life is so precious, and because conventional therapies are the only known treatments with a scientific track record for systematic curing, your search for a cure should always start there.

We do know that complementary cancer therapies can significantly enhance quality of life. When you are facing a life-threatening illness, this is extremely important. In addition, complementary cancer therapies may possibly help cancer patients live longer, although the scientific literature on this point is fragmentary.

If you can draw from a combination of complementary, alternative, and conventional therapies, you create what Andrew Weil, MD, calls integrative medicine -- an empirical medicine based on what works from all traditions of healing. A truly integrative approach to cancer treatment can be summarized as follows.

• If a conventional cancer therapy offers a clear-cut cure for any cancer, use it.

• If a conventional therapy is not a clear-cut cure, but offers a substantial chance for a cure or an extended life span, then consider it carefully.

• While using effective conventional treatments, consider using complementary therapies shown to enhance quality of life. Also consider using therapies that may lengthen life span.

When a conventional therapy offers only a minimal chance of a cure -- and the risks and side effects of the therapy are harmful – your choice is more difficult. In this situation, what makes sense for you depends on your style of risk. Some people will choose the conventional therapy, despite its low cure rate and high toxicity, in hopes of life extension. Some will choose to supplement the conventional therapy with complementary therapies. And some will forego the conventional therapy and choose either complementary therapies alone or no further treatment at all. Again, this decision is highly personal, but should be made with careful consideration of your options, with input from the physician or health care practitioner you trust.