Why do Australian cancer patients use unproven therapies

Recently there has been renewed public interest in unproven methods of cancer treatment. While a number of studies have documented patient use of unproven methods in the US and Britain, little is known about the situation in Australia. This study is investigating the use of unproven therapies with English speaking cancer patients attending an oncology clinic at Royal Prince

At the Alfred Hospital, all patients are administered a questionnaire to determine the rate of use, motivation for use, the perceived benefits and costs and the demographics of patients using unproven therapies. Of the 80 patients surveyed, 54% reported using at least one unproven therapy and 29% used 4 or more. Twenty unproven therapies were listed in the survey and meditation/relaxation was the most frequently used (21 patients; 26%). The use of multivitamins and a change in diet were the second most frequently used therapies with 10 patients (13%) using each of these.

The most frequently reported motivation for using an unproven therapy was that it could assist conventional treatment (41 patients; 73%). In contrast, only 4 patients (10%) thought that these therapies would cure the cancer. Of the most popular therapies used, the most expensive therapy was multivitamins ($2,434), followed by meditation/relaxation ($335) and the least expensive was a change in diet ($96). In univariate analyses, age (p<0.05) and education (p<0.001) were significantly related to the number of unproven therapies received. Younger and well-educated cancer patients tended to use more unproven therapies than older and less well-educated cancer patients.