Background & Aims

Many cancer patients seek homeopathy as a complementary add-on therapy to improve their quality of life. Standard cancer therapy has rarely been studied systematically whether homeopathic care is of benefit for cancer patients.

Methods

We conducted a prospective observational study at King Edward Memorial Hospital, Mumbai and Pune, in the department of palliative oncology in two differently treated cohorts: one cohort with patients under complementary homeopathic treatment (HG; n = 100), and one control with conventionally treated cancer patients (CG; n = 100). For a direct comparison, matched pairs with patients having tumor-related pain and comparable prognosis were to be formed.

Main outcome parameter: change of quality of life FACT-G (The Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy – General), FACIT-Sp (Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy – Spiritual Well-Being) after 6 months.

Secondary outcome parameters: change of quality of life (FACT-G, FACIT-Sp) after 9 months, as well as impairment by fatigue (MFI) and anxiety (GAD-7), and depression (PHQ-9).

Results

HG: FACT-G, or FACIT-Sp, respectively improved statistically significantly in the first six months. After 9 months, a further increase was found. Fatigue (MFI) decreased; anxiety (GAD-7) and depression (PHQ-9) also improved.

CG: FACT-G remained constant in the first six months. After nine months, there was a slight increase. FACIT-Sp scores improved significantly and declined over a period of time. Fatigue, anxiety, and depression gradually showed improvement.

30 patients of HG and 40 patients of CG met our criteria for matched-pairs selection. Due to large differences between the two patient populations, however, only 11 matched pairs could be formed. This is not sufficient for a comparative study.

Conclusions

This study found an improvement in quality of life and a decrease in fatigue symptoms under complementary homeopathic treatment. A larger sample size is required to find matched pairs suitable for comparison in order to establish a definite causal relationship between these effects and homeopathic treatment.

References

https://www.facit.org/measures/fact-g
https://www.facit.org/measures/facit-sp
https://adaa.org/sites/default/files/GAD-7_Anxiety-updated_0.pdf
https://med.stanford.edu/fastlab/research/imapp/msrs/_jcr_content/main/accordion/accordion_content3/download_256324296/file.res/PHQ9%20id%20date%2008.03.pdf
https://www.med.upenn.edu/cbti/assets/user-content/documents/Multidimensional%20Fatigue%20Inventory%20(MFI).pdf

Presenting Author

Farokh J Master

Poster Authors

Farokh Master

MD

Homoeopathic Health Center

Lead Author

Topics

  • Specific Pain Conditions/Pain in Specific Populations: Cancer Pain & Palliative Care