Alternative Medicine Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Alternative Medicine, including details on complementary medicine, alternative therapies, homeopathy.

Complementary and alternative medicine research and cooperative groups: can it happen?

O'Mara A

National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, 6130 Executive Blvd., EPN 2010, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA. omaraa@MAIL.NIH.GOV

The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) interventions to ameliorate cancer- and treatment-related toxicities is gaining increasing attention among clinical investigators. The National Cancer Institute supports a number of clinical studies, both descriptive and interventional, of CAM interventions across the cancer trajectory, from prevention through diagnosis and treatment, survivorship, and end of life. This report highlights the unique challenges that clinical investigators face when designing and implementing CAM clinical trials through the cooperative groups. This report focuses on 2 CAM trials that opened and accrued participants in the Children's Oncology Group. One trial is aimed at preventing or reducing mucositis and the other at preventing chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting.

Published 11 August 2006 in J Pediatr Oncol Nurs, 23(5): 258-60.
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