A Prospective Study to Evaluate the Prevalence of Complementary and Alternative Medicine among Cancer Patients in India

AR Bansal*, Kapil Vats, Joy Bansal, Drgesh Goyal and Harsha Kamalhans

Background: Cancer is a major public health problem and remains one of the leading causes of death. Most patients turn to Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) when they are in the terminal stage and Conventional Medicine (CM) has not completely cured them. CAM majorly includes herbal medicine, spiritual therapy, and daily supplements, among many other things. 

Methods: A total of 215 diagnosed cancer patients were assessed, amongst other things like age, literacy, income, etc., and also particularly any benefits and side effects of CAM, and whether they are still using CAM or not. 

Results: A handful of 19 patients benefited from CAM amongst the 116 participants who were using CAM, while 43 of the CAM users reported side effects like ulcer and fistula formation, increased sweating, hematuria, acne, etc.

Conclusion: Despite significant advances with CM, there is increasing use of CAM in the belief of a permanent cure, particularly amongst the terminally ill cancer patients.

Keywords:

Published on: Aug 6, 2025 Pages: 1-5

Full Text PDF Full Text HTML DOI: 10.17352/apm.000037
CrossMark Publons Harvard Library HOLLIS Search IT Semantic Scholar Get Citation Base Search Scilit OAI-PMH ResearchGate Academic Microsoft GrowKudos Universite de Paris UW Libraries SJSU King Library SJSU King Library NUS Library McGill DET KGL BIBLiOTEK JCU Discovery Universidad De Lima WorldCat VU on WorldCat