The CAM Cancer database

Redaksjonen | Published 07/12/2022

CAM Cancer's database contains the CAM Cancer summaries presenting the best available evidence regarding safety and efficacy of CAM in cancer care. It can be accessed by searching for treatments, symptoms and cancer type. The database is open-access, non-profit and complies with Health On the Net’s standards for health online information (HONcode).

Photo of a womans hand holding a magnifyer over a writing pad.

Photo by Andrey Popov, Mostphotos.com

The CAM Cancer summaries aim to present the best available evidence that exists about CAM interventions for the prevention, treatment or supportive care of cancer. The summaries provide background information of a treatment as well as an appraisal of the evidence of its efficacy and safety. CAM-summaries are peer-reviewed and regularly updated.

Methodology

CAM Cancer follows a strict methodology to ensure that the summaries are unbiased and of high quality. They are based on systematic literature searches, critical appraisal of the available data and evidence synthesis following the CAM Cancer templates and guidelines. All summaries are fully referenced. Summaries including five or more controlled clinical trials/systematic reviews present details and data in table format (Evidence tables).

Who is it for?

The primary audience for our summaries are health care professionals. We strive to present the evidence in a clinically meaningful way, for facilitating dialogue between clinicians and their patients and contributing to informed health decisions and patient safety. Although the summaries are mainly written with a professional readership in mind, the introductory abstracts could also be recommended for lay persons.

Navigating the database

There are three ways of accessing the CAM Cancer summaries: via the A-Z of treatments, A-Z of symptoms/outcomes, or A-Z of cancer types (NB: The latter two are under development).

1. The main listing is the A-Z of treatments, which gives you access to the core of the database: the 70 treatment-based summaries, e.g. on aromatherapy, green tea, massage, yoga. These summaries are written using a common template, and presented on the web site with hyper-linked sections that enable easy navigation and distribution.

2. The A-Z of symptoms allows you to search for specific symptoms or outcomes, e.g. fatigue or survival.

3. The A-Z of cancer types provides access to the summaries by searching for specific cancer types, e. g. breast cancer, prostate cancer.