Mapping the clinical practice of SCAM in oncology in Western countries.

The authors concluded that acupuncturists and herbalists commonly treat cancer patients. Most practitioners use SCAM as an adjunct to biomedicine as supportive care and use it largely in accordance with current oncological guidelines.

You would think that the combined expertise of these institutions are capable of producing a decent survey:

• Palliative Care Unit, Division of Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, Medical University of Graz, 8036 Graz, Austria
• Northern College of Acupuncture, York YO1 6LJ, United Kingdom
• School of Health and Society, Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing, University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton WV1 1LY, United Kingdom
• National Institute of Complementary Medicine Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, Penrith NSW 2751, Australia
• Translational Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, Penrith NSW 2751, Australia
• Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, Wellington 6021, New Zealand
• Translational Oncology, University Hospital of Augsburg, 86156 Augsburg, Germany

Well, you would have been mistaken! This surely is one of the worst investigations I have seen for a while. Here are just three reasons why:

• The researchers designed an anonymous self-completion questionnaire collecting data about the participating practitioners’ demographics and clinical practice of integrative oncology. Someone should tell them that one ought to validate questionnairs before using them and that validated questionnairs exist. Unvalidated questionnairs cannot tell us much of value.
• The researchers  invited SCAM practitioners in Austria, Germany, USA, Australia, and New Zealand to participate in this study. Invitations were distributed through social media and emails between October 2022 and December 2022 by professional organizations. Someone should tell them that research needs to be reproducible and surveys need to cover a representative population – both criteria that are not met here.
• The survey participants had to hold a valid license to perform acupuncture, herbal medicine, or both. That excludes all other SCAM practitioners.

Despite these serious flaws, the survey shows two findings that might be worth mentioning:

• only 28.0% of the SCAM practitioners were in contact with the treating oncologist;
• SCAM practitioners believe that “experts” are more reliable to inform their practice than research publications.

For me, these two points alone would be sufficient reason to run a mile!