Homeopathy in the Fight Against Breast Cancer: ANOTHER DEATH BY HOMEOPATHY

Homeopathy is harmless – except when it kills you!

Death by homeopathy has been a theme that occurred with depressing regularity on my blog, e.g.:

• Death by homeopathy
• Another death by homeopathy
• Death by homeopathy?
• The case of a boy tortured to death with homeopathy
• Homeopathy is the death of the patient suffering from gangrene

Now, there is yet another sad fatality that must be added to the list. This case report presents a 61-year-old woman with metastatic breast cancer who opted for homeopathic treatments instead of standard oncological care. She presented to the Emergency Department with bilateral necrotic breasts, lymphedema, and widespread metastatic disease. Imaging revealed extensive lytic and sclerotic lesions, as well as pulmonary emboli. Laboratory results showed leukocytosis, lactic acidosis, and hypercalcemia of malignancy.

During hospitalization, patient was managed with anticoagulation and broad-spectrum antibiotics. Despite disease progression, patient declined systemic oncological treatments, leading to a complicated disease trajectory marked by frailty, sarcopenia, and functional quadriplegia, ultimately, a palliative care approach was initiated, and she was discharged to hospice and died.

This case highlights the complex challenges in managing advanced cancer when patients choose alternative therapies over evidence-based treatments. The role of homeopathy in cancer care is controversial, as it lacks robust clinical evidence for managing malignancies, especially metastatic disease.

Although respecting patient autonomy is essential, this case underscores the need for healthcare providers to ensure patients are fully informed about the limitations of alternative therapies. While homeopathy may offer emotional comfort, it is not a substitute for effective cancer treatments. Earlier intervention with conventional oncology might have altered the disease course and improved outcomes. The eventual transition to hospice care focused on maintaining the quality of life and dignity at the end-of-life, emphasizing the importance of integrating palliative care early in the management of advanced cancer to enhance patient and family satisfaction.

Even though such awful stories are far from rare, reports of this nature rarely get published. Clinicians are simply too busy to write up case histories that show merely what sadly must be expected, if a patient refuses effective therapy for a serious condition and prefers to use homeopathy as an “alternative”. Yet, the rather obvious truth is that homeopathy is no alternative. I have pointed it out many times before: if a treatment does not work, it is dangerously misleading to call it alternative medicine – one of the reasons why I nowadays prefer the term so-called alternative medicine (SCAM).

But what about homeopathy as an adjunctive cancer therapy?

In 2011, Walach et al published a prospective observational study with cancer patients in two differently treated cohorts: one cohort with patients under complementary homeopathic treatment (HG; n = 259), and one cohort with conventionally treated cancer patients (CG; n = 380). The authors observed an improvement of quality of life as well as a tendency of fatigue symptoms to decrease in cancer patients under complementary homeopathic treatment.

Walach and other equally deluded defenders of homeopathy (such as Wurster or Frass) tend to interpret these findings as being caused by homeopathy. Yet, this does not seem to be the case, as they regularly forget about the possibility of other, more plausible explanations for their results (e.g. placebo or selection bias). I am not aware of a rigorous trial showing that adjunctive homeopathy has specific effects when used by cancer patients (if a reader knows more, please let me know; I am always keen to learn).

So, is there a role for homeopathy in the fight against cancer?

My short answer:

No!