National Post (National Edition)
Naturopathic cancer therapies to be studied
O T T AWA • Dugald Seely calls himself the rebel of his family: His father was the former dean of medicine at the University of Ottawa and his mother is a family doctor, but Mr. Seely stepped away from the family business to become a naturopath, a field that is sometimes at odds with conventional medicine.
Now he is coming back into the family fold, in a way.
Mr. Seely, who is the executive director of the Ottawa Integrative Cancer Centre and an affiliate investigator with the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, has joined with older brother Dr. Andrew Seely, a thoracic surgeon at The Ottawa Hospital.
The pair will co-lead a major research project that will do what many have long asked for: provide hard data about whether such naturopathic therapies as acupuncture, massage, exercise and nutritional therapies combined with conventional medicine can help prolong or improve the lives of cancer patients.
The trials will study the use of integrative treatments for 300 esophageal-, gastricand lung-cancer patients who will undergo surgery. The 11-year study will take place in Ottawa, Kelowna, B.C., and Hamilton. Exactly which therapies will be offered to the patients in the clinical trials will be determined based on a consensus of which ones are the most evidence-based and useful.
The grant that will fund the research — $3.85-million from a Canadian foundation that wants to remain anonymous — is the largest of its kind in the world, Mr. Seely said.
The research, between the Ottawa Integrative Cancer Centre (which is an arm of the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine) and the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, has the potential to change treatment for some cancer patients. It also represents a major step toward integrating more naturopathic treatments into conventional medicine using scientific rigour.
“The results of
the study will be internationally relevant and have the potential to alter care for cancer patients worldwide,” said Dr. Andrew Seely, who is an associate scientist at The Ottawa Hospital, director of research for its division of thoracic surgery, and an associate professor at the University of Ottawa.
Major clinical trials into naturopathic treatments are rare in Canada. There is little economic incentive for drug or other companies to support them and public funds are in high demand. All this means there is a lack of hard evidence about what works and what does not.
The clinical trials, to be coled by the Seely brothers, are possible because of the grant from the private foundation. The foundation also funded an ongoing research project by the brothers looking at the effect of melatonin on postsurgical lung-cancer patients.
Mr. Seely said the research has the potential to be part of a cultural shift: “a recognition by the medical system that naturopathic care can provide real value.”
Dr. Seely said doctors often feel they are inadequately prepared to answer questions from their patients related to naturopathic therapies. “They simply don’t know how to respond. ... They are concerned about side effects and their impact on traditional therapies.”
He said those who judge naturopathic therapies as entirely positive or entirely negative are both making inappropriate judgments.
The Thoracic Peri-Operative Integrative Surgical Care Evaluation project, as it is called, will pioneer “integrative care interventions” to use before and after cancer surgery. It will assess whether the approach reduces adverse effects and improves “diseasefree survival,” Dr. Seely said.
Terr y Vida, an Ottawa breast cancer survivor who worked with medical and naturopathic doctors during her treatment, using supplements, acupuncture, exercise and nutrition because she wanted to “do everything possible to deal with” her cancer, said she welcomes the research. “I feel as though this approach helped me a lot and it is through research such as this that we will really know.”