Revised December 2008
These pages are intended to provide objective information for patients and their families, relating to complementary and alternative (CAM) cancer therapies.
Healthcare providers at the BC Cancer Agency believe there is a role for integrative, alternative and complementary therapies to promote improved quality of life, maintain hope, enhance feelings of control, and encourage healing within the cancer experience.
We recognize that the cancer experience is unique for each individual, and that personal healing can occur at different levels even when cancer is progressing. We try to adopt a respectful and compassionate attitude to our patient’s questions and beliefs, and we encourage patients to share with us their decisions about complementary/ alternative therapies.
To help our patients and their families find unbiased, factual information about CAM therapies, we are pleased to provide the Natural Standard Database. The Natural Standard is an impartial international research collaboration that systematically gathers evidence about complementary and alternative medicine therapies using scientific data and expert opinion.
Staff at the BC Cancer Agency have long been providing patients with evidence-based information on CAM. In response to increasing questions about specific alternative therapies, the first book we created in 1987 was called Unproven methods of cancer treatment: a manual for patients. Most of the information in our books consists of direct quotations from the medical, peer-reviewed book and journal literature. Since then the name has been changed to Unconventional Cancer Therapies. The complete contents of the Unconventional Cancer Therapies Manual, 3rd ed. (2000) are located on the left side of this page. Work was started on the 4th edition, but only the Antineoplastons monograph has been completed.
In 2008, BC Cancer Agency and the UBC School of Nursing started a research project - the Complementary Medicine Education and Outcomes (CAMEO) Program. CAMEO aims to evaluate the effect of education and decision support about CAM for people living with cancer as well as for cancer health professionals. Please visit the CAMEO website for further information about this research initiative.
In the two decades since we first produced the UCT Manual, many other medical and scientific websites have become available to help the public understand the uses of CAM therapies. Please visit our Recommended Links page for other excellent web resources.