Which botanicals or other unconventional anticancer agents should we take to clinical trial?

This article describes five principles pertaining to the question of which CAM agents should be taken to clinical trial: (1) many CAM agents have been proposed as cancer treatments, far more than could possibly be studied in clinical trials; (2) claims by patients or practitioners are generally unhelpful in choosing which CAM agents to test; (3) laboratory studies can help determine which CAM agents to take to trial and with which cointerventions; (4) preliminary laboratory studies are essential to confirm safety before trials can be considered; and (5) the vast majority of anticancer CAM agents will be ineffective; our aim should be to discard agents from consideration as rapidly as possible. PMID: 17761132 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Source: Journal of the Society for Integrative Oncology - Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: J Soc Integr Oncol Source Type: research