Poonthananiwatkul Benjawan, Howard Rachel L, Williamson Elizabeth M, Lim Rosemary H M
University of Reading School of Pharmacy, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AP, United Kingdom.
University of Reading School of Pharmacy, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AP, United Kingdom.
J Ethnopharmacol. 2015 Dec 4;175:58-66. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2015.08.052. Epub 2015 Sep 3.
Cancer patients in all cultures are high consumers of herbal medicines (HMs) usually as part of a regime consisting of several complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) modalities, but the type of patient, the reasons for choosing such HM-CAM regimes, and the benefits they perceive from taking them are poorly understood. There are also concerns that local information may be ignored due to language issues. This study investigates aspects of HM-CAM use in cancer patients using two different abstracting sources: Medline, which contains only peer-reviewed studies from SCI journals, and in order to explore whether further data may be available regionally, the Thai national databases of HM and CAM were searched as an example.
The international and Thai language databases were searched separately to identify relevant studies, using key words chosen to include HM use in all traditions. Analysis of these was undertaken to identify socio-demographic and clinical factors, as well as sources of information, which may inform the decision to use HMs.
Medline yielded 5638 records, with 49 papers fitting the criteria for review. The Thai databases yielded 155, with none relevant for review. Factors associated with HM-CAM usage were: a younger age, higher education or economic status, multiple chemotherapy treatment, late stage of disease. The most common purposes for using HM-CAM cited by patients were to improve physical symptoms, support emotional health, stimulate the immune system, improve quality of life, and relieve side-effects of conventional treatment.
Several indicators were identified for cancer patients who are most likely to take HM-CAM. However, interpreting the clinical reasons why patients decide to use HM-CAM is hampered by a lack of standard terminology and thematic coding, because patients' own descriptions are too variable and overlapping for meaningful comparison. Nevertheless, fears that the results of local studies published regionally are being missed, at least in the case of Thailand, appeared to be unfounded.
所有文化背景下的癌症患者都是草药的高消费者，草药通常是由多种补充和替代医学（CAM）方式组成的治疗方案的一部分，但对于患者类型、选择此类草药 - CAM治疗方案的原因以及他们服用草药所感知到的益处，人们了解甚少。此外，还担心由于语言问题，当地信息可能会被忽视。本研究使用两种不同的文献来源调查癌症患者使用草药 - CAM的情况：Medline，它仅包含来自SCI期刊的同行评审研究；为了探索是否可以从区域获得更多数据，以泰国草药和CAM国家数据库为例进行了检索。
分别检索国际和泰语数据库以识别相关研究，使用选定的关键词以涵盖所有传统医学中草药的使用。对这些研究进行分析，以确定可能影响使用草药决策的社会人口统计学和临床因素以及信息来源。
Medline检索到5638条记录，其中49篇论文符合综述标准。泰国数据库检索到155条记录，无一符合综述标准。与草药 - CAM使用相关的因素包括：年龄较小、教育程度较高或经济状况较好、多次化疗、疾病晚期。患者提及使用草药 - CAM最常见的目的是改善身体症状、支持情绪健康、刺激免疫系统、提高生活质量以及减轻传统治疗的副作用。
确定了一些最有可能使用草药 - CAM的癌症患者指标。然而，由于缺乏标准术语和主题编码，解释患者决定使用草药 - CAM的临床原因受到阻碍，因为患者自己的描述过于多样且相互重叠，无法进行有意义的比较。尽管如此，至少在泰国，担心错过区域发表的当地研究结果似乎是没有根据的。
