Alternative therapy is treatment outside what is considered standard care. When some of the alternative therapies, such as acupuncture, are used along with the treatment prescribed by the patient’s doctor, it is called complementary treatment. When patients do not receive any standard, recommended treatment and use only non-traditional healing practices, it is called alternative therapy.Some of the treatments themselves are being actively investigated. No doctor wants to deny anything that will actually provide a patient improvement in quality of life, or allow him or her to live longer.
Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) refers to any or all of the nonstandard treatments. At the National Cancer Institute there is an office of CAM (OCCAM).
Alternative treatments have not gone through the lengthy research process needed to prove efficacy and safety for the specific disease, in this case, mesothelioma. CAM can include vitamins in very high doses, herbs and teas, acupuncture, dietary supplements, massage, spiritual healing, meditation, and other practices.
There are two main concerns with alternative therapy. One is that a patient may put off getting standard therapy, and his cancer may be spreading when it could be treated. That is the risk of refusing traditional therapy. The other concern is that the alternative therapy itself could be toxic, because many of the agents have not been tested. This has happened in the past with medicines like laetrile.
Most doctors treating patients with mesothelioma would hope that they are willing to accept standard treatment, and consider adding complimentary methods as long as they are not dangerous.
