Awareness and Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Korean Lung Cancer Patients

Abstract

Background Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has been used frequently, and its use continues to increase in lung cancer patients, despite insufficient scientific of its efficacy. To investigate this situation, we analyzed the current awareness and use of CAM in Korean lung-cancer patients. Methods This prospective survey–based study was performed at seven medical centers in South Korea between August and October 2019. The survey assessed general patient characteristics and the awareness and use of CAM. We analyzed differences in the clinical parameters of patients aware and not aware of CAM and of CAM non-users and users. Results Of the 434 patients included in this study, 68.8% responded that they were aware of CAM and 30.9% said they had experienced it. In univariate analysis, the patients aware of CAM were younger with poor performance status, had advanced-stage lung cancer, received more systemic therapy, and received concurrent chemoradiation therapy (CCRT). By multiple logistic regression, younger age, poor performance status, advanced stage, and prior CCRT were identified as independent risk factors for CAM awareness. There were no significant differences in the general characteristics and cancer-associated clinical parameters of CAM non-users and users. Conclusion Specific clinical parameters were associated with patients’ awareness of CAM, although there were no significantly different characteristics between CAM users and non-users.

Factors Influencing Demand for Medical Cannabis Use among Cancer Patients in the North of Thailand

“…Clinical characteristics are also important. Patients that have undergone treatment for a long duration of time or had less success in treatment were more like to have higher awareness about CAM, which can affect subsequent usage (Choi et al,2021). An advanced stage of cancer has been shown to be strongly related to CAM use (Naja et al,2015).…”

Traditional and complementary medicine use among cancer patients in Asian countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…The majority of the studies were designed as cross-sectional studies in 14 Asian countries, including Turkey (n=12) [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48] , Malaysia (n=5) [49][50][51][52][53] , Korea (n=4) [54][55][56][57] , India 58-60 , Iran 61-63 , Thailand 64-66 , China 67,68 , Lebanon 69,70 , Singapore 71,72 , Indonesia 73 , Mongolia 74 , Nepal 75 , Pakistan 76 , and Taiwan 77 . Two-thirds of the studies were published since 2011 (n = 27, 65.9%).…”

“…Geographically, the studies were predominantly conducted in Western Asia (n = 17, 41.5%), followed by Southeast Asia (n = 11, 26.8%). Thirty studies investigated multiple cancer types, while eleven articles focused on speci c types such as breast cancer 42,[51][52][53]70,73 , gynecological cancer 65 , gastrointestinal cancer 78 , and lung cancer 54,69 . After excluding studies that did not report individual cancer types, the most prevalent types of cancer were breast cancer (32.7%), followed by gastrointestinal cancer (14.5%), lung cancer (10.2%), and hematologic cancer (including leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma) (8.1%).…”

“…The prevalence estimate of T&CM use exhibited variation across different regions (p=0.001), health insurance (p < 0.000), survey year (p = 0.040). In terms of regional T&CM use, the highest pooled prevalence estimate was observed in East Asia (62.4%, 95% CI=50.5-73.7; I² = 97.6%) [54][55][56][57]67,68,74,77 , while the lowest estimate was reported in South Asia (33.5%, 95% CI=25.1-42.6; I² = 96.0%) 58-60, 75,76 . The heterogeneity between these subgroups was found to be signi cant based on the Q-test (Χ 2 =17.714, p=0.001), suggesting that the observed differences are unlikely to occur by chance alone and indicating the presence of substantial heterogeneity (see online Supplementary Figure 2).…”

“…Five studies did not report the prevalence of T&CM use by gender 39,48,59,62,63 , so thirty-six studies were included in the subgroup analysis based on gender, with only twenty-seven studies reporting on males 38,40,41,[43][44][45][46][47]49,50,[54][55][56][57][58]60,61,64,[66][67][68][69]71,72,74,75,77 . The pooled prevalence estimate in the combined sample reported as male was 50.2% (95% CI=44.3-56.0) and female was 52.3% (95% CI=46.3-58.2).…”