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CAM: Some of the Alternative Therapies
If you do not find a specific therapy in the list below, check NCCAM, CancerGov, Healthfinder, Carol Anne's site, or Longwood Herbal Task Force (web site LHTF). The links for these sites are on the ped-onc CAM sites page. Or, look them up on the PubMed CAM journal article search page. You can also go to Commonweal, and enter the therapy you are interested in on their search page.
Some of these are offered as replacements to conventional therapies, but some can be used in conjunction with conventional therapies. I am not personally familiar with any of them.
Complementary therapies that are generally considered safe and that are probably used by a lot of families are on the ped-onc complementary therapies page.
Dietary Treatments
Dietary treatments for cancer include eating a rather drastic diet, such as a lot of a particular type of one type of food while avoiding another type of food. They might be combined with enemas to eliminate toxins from the body.
Gerson therapy (organic foods, fresh juices, increased potassium/decreased sodium, coffee enemas)
Livingston therapy (high quantity of raw, organic fruits and vegetables and abscisic acid. and bacterial vaccines)
Kelley diet (based on the theory of metabolic types and the use of enzymes)
Macrobiotic diet (cooked foods, sea vegetables, brown rice, some fish)
Nutritional Supplements
Nutritional supplements as cancer therapy include vitamins, minerals, and other nutritive substances.
- Vitamin A, C, and E supplements
- selenium
- bovine and shark cartilage (CancerGuide on shark cartilage, LHTF, CancerNet)
- germanium-132 (a mineral found in ginseng, garlic shiitake mushrooms)
Immunological therapies and non-toxic pharmacological therapies
- antineoplastons (Burzinski) (protein chains that Burzynski theorizes are part of the body's natural biochemical defense system) (http://catalog.com/bri/ncibri.htm, Longwood Herbal Task Force, Cancer Guide)
- immuno-augmntative therapy (IAT) (daily injections of blood proteins that may enhance immune response to cancer)
- hydrazine sulfate (LHTF, CancerNet)
- Revici (involves balancing anabolic and catabolic processes in the body; focuses on the improving the balance between anabolic - synthesis of complex molecules from simpler molecules - and catabolic - breakdown of complex molecules into simpler molecules - activities within the human body.
- Issels' autogenous bacterial vaccines
- Coley's toxins (injections of bacteria - usually killed - that are used to trigger an immune response to cancer cells) (Cancer Guide, Coley's toxins/Issel's fever therapy)
- laetrile (CancerNet)
- clodronate
- urea
- oxygen therapies
- iscador
- 714-X (CancerNet)
Herbal Therapies
- Green tea
- Essiac (burdock, Indian rhubarb, sorrel, and slippery elm)
- Hoxsey (potassium iodide, burdock root, berberis root, buckthornbark, licorice, stillingia root, pokeroot, prickly ash bark, and red clover) (LHTF)
- Chinese herbal products (see Boik and Lerner)
- Elixir Vitae (Cancer Guide on Elixir Vitae, Longwood Herbal Task Force)
- Sun Soup (Cancer Guide on Sun Soup)
- Aloe (Commonweal, Longwood Herbal Task Force)