Standish LJ, Sweet E, Kim E, Dowd F, McLaughlin R, Chiang P, Dale L, Gaul M, Andersen MR. Recurrence of Breast Cancer After Primary Treatment: A
Matched Comparison Study of Disease-Free Survival in Women Who Do and Do Not Receive Adjunctive Naturopathic Oncology Care.
Integr Cancer Ther 2021;
20:15347354211058404. [PMID:
34894812 PMCID:
PMC8671681 DOI:
10.1177/15347354211058404]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
Purpose:
To compare disease free survival experienced by women who received usual
oncologic care compared to a cohort of women who received naturopathic
oncology care in addition to usual care.
Methods:
Women with breast cancer who received naturopathic oncology (NO) care in
Western Washington State (WA) (N = 176) were recruited to a prospective
study of clinical health-related quality of life outcomes and then matched
to women who received usual care (UC) only (N = 334).
Results:
Among 510 women with breast cancer stages 1 to 3, a total of 50 women (10%)
experienced a disease-free survival (DFS) ending event within the
observation period; 23 (6.8% of those in the UC cohort, and 27 (15.3% of
those in the NO cohort (P < .05). Although, women in the
2 cohorts received similar surgical, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment,
women with breast cancer who received naturopathic oncology adjunctive care
were less likely to use anti-estrogen therapy, and experienced poorer DFS
(logrank test, P < .05). However, differences in DFS
could not be shown to be due to cohort differences in anti-estrogen therapy,
baseline HRQOL, or naturopathic oncology therapies prescribed. The stage 3
women in the naturopathic oncology group had more advanced disease at
diagnosis. They were more likely to have 5 or more metastatic lymph nodes at
baseline (18.5%) compared to their usual care matched control group (13%).
Women in the naturopathic oncology group also had higher grade tumors at
diagnosis.
Conclusions:
Results show that recurrence of breast cancer was associated with more
advanced malignant lymph node involvement; and that naturopathic oncology
services provided in 2009-2015 did not improve disease-free survival in
these high-risk breast cancer patients.
Collapse