Use of Alternative Medicine Among Patients With Head and Neck Cancer

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Abstract
THE POPULARITY of alternative medicine in North America has grown at an astonishing rate in recent years. In 1990, an estimated $13.7 billion were spent on alternative therapies by Americans.1 Most of this amount ($10.3 billion) was spent outside of insurance coverage, which represented about 80% of nationwide noninsured hospital expenditures during the same year. A telephone survey of 36,000 US households conducted in 1988 by the American Cancer Society's Committee on Questionable Cancer Management determined that 9% of patients with cancer had used some form of alternative cancer therapy.2 Use of alternative medicine was noted to increase with higher education and income, geographical location (Mountain, Pacific, and New England regions had the highest prevalence), and tumor site (spine, brain, ovary, and lymphoma tumors had the highest prevalence). Other studies3 have noted overall prevalence rates of alternative medicine to be as high as 54% among patients with cancer . The enormous popularity of these methods was reflected in the establishment by the 1992 US Congress of the National Institutes of Health–Office of Alternative Medicine. This office has provided the following standardized classification of alternative medicine4: diet and nutrition; mind-body techniques; bioelectromagnetics; traditional and folk remedies and alternative systems of medical practice; pharmacological and biologic treatments; manual healing methods; and herbal medicine. Moreover, at least 27 US medical schools offer courses in alternative medicine.5