Alternative Therapies for Cancer

We often read of cancer patients who forgo or delay traditional conventional options, such as chemotherapy, and instead opt for alternative therapies, such as spiritual healing or herbal remedies given by non-medical personnel. Unfortunately this can have serious survival implications for the patient – in many cases the treatment fails to stop the cancer. However, there is a paucity of actual clinical evidence on the use and effectiveness of alternative therapies. Step in Johnson and colleagues who examined the United States Cancer Database to compare the survival outcomes of patients who underwent alternative therapies with those who received conventional therapies for four cancer types (breast, prostate, lung and colorectal).[1] Although rare, they found 281 patients who had chosen alternative therapies exclusive of any other treatment – these patients were more likely to be younger, female, have a lower comorbidity score, higher income, higher education, and a more advanced cancer stage. When matched with patients who received conventional treatments (on cancer type, age, clinical stage, etc.), they found that alternative therapies were associated with significantly lower five-year survival overall – 78.3% of patients who underwent conventional therapies survived, compared to 54.7% of those who had alternative therapies only (hazard ratio 2.21, 95% CI 1.72-2.83). When looked at by cancer type increased hazard ratios were found for breast (HR 5.68, 95% CI 3.22-10.04), lung (HR 2.17, 95% CI 1.42-3.32) and colorectal cancer (HR 4.57, 1.66-12.61), but there was no significant difference for prostate cancer (HR1.68, 95% CI 0.68-4.17) – the authors suggest this may be because of the long natural history of prostate cancer and the short follow-up of the study.

By itself, undergoing alternative therapies isn’t likely to be harmful, but it should be taken in combination with conventional therapy, and health practitioners need to ensure that patients are fully aware of the impact of their decisions regarding cancer treatment.

— Peter Chilton, Research Fellow
Reference:

1. Johnson SB, Park HS, Gross CP, Yu JB. Use of Alternative Medicine for Cancer and Its Impact on Survival. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2017.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy vs. Mindfulness Therapy

It is known that mindfulness therapy is effective in improving depression and, in many circumstances, in improving chronic pain (see later in News Blog). What is not so clear is whether it is better than the more standard therapy of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

Cognitive behavioural therapy aims to abolish or reduce painful and harmful thoughts. Mindfulness therapy on the other hand does not seek to extirpate the depressing thoughts, but rather to help the person disassociate themselves from the harmful consequences of these thoughts. It often involves an element of meditation.

We have found three recent studies which compare CBT and mindfulness therapy head-to-head for depression.[1-3] In all three RCTs the two therapies were a dead heat. In short, both methods seem equally effective and certainly they are both better than nothing. But does this mean that they are equal; that the choice does not matter one way or the other?

In this article I argue that the fact that the two therapies all equally effective in improving mood, does not mean that they are equivalent. This is because they are designed to have different effects – abolition of harmful thoughts in one case, learning to live with them in the other. So it is reasonable to ask which one would prefer, abolishing the painful thoughts or simply learning not to be affected by them.

Philosophically, the argument behind CBT is that thoughts, at least at a certain level, are a kind of behaviour. They are a behaviour in the sense that they can be changed under conscious control. Mindfulness therapy does not attempt to ‘over-write’ thoughts. This means that the two therapies, in so far as they achieve their objectives, are not philosophically equivalent. Moreover, there are arguments in favour of removing the harmful thoughts, even if this does not result in any greater improvement in mood than the counter-factural. Consider a man whose wife is annoyed by certain movements that he is unable to control. It is surely much better, both from her point of view and from the point of view of the husband, that these painful thoughts should be removed altogether, rather than just tolerated. Alternatively, consider a person who is chronically distressed by a recurring memory of the painful death of a parent. Again, it is surely better that this person trains himself to think of another aspect of the parent’s life whenever the troubling thoughts recur, than to simply continue to remember the death, but not get upset by it.

So, I think that CBT is philosophically preferable to mindfulness therapy, even if it is no more effective in improving mood. From a philosophical point of view, it is important to develop a high rectitude way of thinking. When negative or morally questionable thoughts pop into the brain, as they do from time to time, these should be suppressed. A racist thought, for example, should be replaced with thoughts of higher rectitude. It is the purpose of the examined life to be able to control negative or bigoted thoughts and supplant them with more positive thoughts under conscious control. From this philosophical perspective CBT can be seen as an extension of the human ability to supplant negative or reprehensible thoughts with ones that are more positive or of higher rectitude. I choose CBT over mindfulness; for all that they might be equally effective in elevating mood, psychiatric treatments have implications that go beyond purely clinical outcomes – since they affect the mind there is always a philosophical dimension.

— Richard Lilford, CLAHRC WM Director

References:

1. Manicavasagar V, Perich T, Parker G. Cognitive Predicators of Change in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression. Behav Cogn Psychother. 2012; 40: 227-32.
2. Omidi A, Mohammadkhani P, Mohammadi A, Zargar F. Comparing Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy and Traditional Cognitive Behavior Therapy With Treatments as Usual on Reduction of Major Depressive Symptoms. Iran Red Crescent Med J. 2013; 15(2): 142-6.
3. Sundquist J, Lilja A, Palmér K, et al. Mindfulness group therapy in primary care patients with depression, anxiety and stress and adjustment disorders: randomised controlled trial. Br J Psychiatry. 2015; 206(2): 128-35.