High-dose vitamin C therapy: Renewed hope or false promise?

Complementary and alternative medicine is commonly used by patients with cancer. Anywhere from 22% to 69% of cancer patients may take herbal medicine, medicinal teas, vitamins and minerals, and use visualization techniques.¹ There is often great pressure put on oncologists by their patients to support the use of and even to prescribe alternative therapies for the treatment of cancer, in particular when no cure or effective therapy exists. Although oncologists might dissuade their patients from pursuing therapies that are likely to be ineffective, in the face of desperate circumstances many patients insist on taking complementary and alternative medicine concurrently with "standard" therapies. A critical concern of most oncologists is whether use of complementary and alternative therapies can cause harm, especially when taken concurrently with a chemotherapy regimen that has a narrow therapeutic index.

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