title: Complementary and alternative medicine in cancer pain management: a systematic review.
abstract: Quality of life (QoL) encompasses the physical, psychosocial, social and spiritual dimensions of life lived by a person. Cancer pain is one of the physical component has tremendous impact on the QoL of the patient. Cancer pain is multifaceted and complex to understand and managing cancer pain involves a tool box full of pharmacological and non pharmacological interventions but still there are 50-70% of cancer patients who suffer from uncontrolled pain and they fear pain more than death. Aggressive surgeries, radiotherapy and chemotherapy focus more on prolonging the survival of the patient failing to realize that the QoL lived also matters equally. This paper reviews complementary and alternative therapy approaches for cancer pain and its impact in improving the QoL of cancer patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, Veer Chandra Singh Garhwali Government Institute of Medical Science and Research, Srikot, India.
authors.forename: Priyanka
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, Subharti Medical College, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.
authors.forename: Aditi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chaturvedi
keywords: Cancer pain; Complementary and Alternative Medicine; Quality of life