Adverse events associated with complementary and alternative medicine use in ovarian cancer patients

Abstract

Introduction: Many women with ovarian cancer are choosing to include complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) substances in conjunction with their conventional treatment for ovarian cancer. Many oncologists express concern that the adjunct use of CAM substances may be detrimental to the achievement of therapeutic levels of chemotherapy leading to increases in drug toxicity, under-treatment of disease or other adverse events. In an effort to ascertain the extent of the potential problem with simultaneous use of CAM with conventional treatment we undertook comprehensive systematic review of published case reports describing CAM-related adverse events among ovarian cancer patients.

Study design: This article describes a systematic literature review.

Methods: The Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database (NMCD). PubMed, EMBASE® and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CCTR) were systematically reviewed for research articles pertaining to case reports describing adverse events in patients, and clinical trials which examined the effects of herbs and supplements used during cancer treatment.

Results: Only one case report and one clinical trial were identified which met our inclusion criteria and were relevant to the current investigation.

Conclusion: Although there are concerns about the potential for adverse events related to concurrent use of CAM substances during conventional treatment we found few case reports and clinical trials in the literature which support this.

Keywords: CAM–drug interactions; chemotherapy; complementary and alternative medicine; herbs; integrative oncology; oncology; ovarian cancer; supplements.