Part three of six
Repurposed and Off-Label Drugs
Real science, a great deal of salesmanship, and how to tell them apart.
The chapters
Why Repurposing Is a Real Idea — the argument for repurposing rather than a set of claims, so nothing in it is graded The Antiparasitics 5 entries The Metabolic Drugs 6 entries The Protocols 1 entry Interactions — the interaction chapter, which is the interaction matrix here rather than a set of graded entries What the register holds for this part
12 entries across 3 of these chapters, in the
book's order. The letter after each one is the grade its claim carries; where an
intervention carries more than one claim, more than one letter is shown.
Chapter 13. The Antiparasitics
Chapter 14. The Metabolic Drugs
Chapter 15. The Protocols
Part Two: Metabolism and Food · Part Four: Supplements · All six parts
Before you read this
This register does not tell anyone what to take, and it carries no doses, for any compound, at any grade. Everything here is written to help you ask your oncology team a better question, not to answer one on your own.
It cannot see you. It does not know your diagnosis, your treatment or your medicines, and nothing on it is personalised to you.
Across curable cancers, choosing alternative medicine instead of conventional treatment was associated with 2.5 times the risk of death. Using it alongside conventional treatment showed no survival difference once treatment delay and refusal were accounted for: a hazard ratio of 1.39, with an interval from 0.83 to 2.33.
The danger is in what gets declined, not in what gets added.
Johnson SB, Park HS, Gross CP, Yu JB. Use of alternative medicine for cancer and its impact on survival. JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute 2018;110(1):121-124. doi:10.1093/jnci/djx145 · Johnson SB, Park HS, Gross CP, Yu JB. Complementary medicine, refusal of conventional cancer therapy, and survival among patients with curable cancers. JAMA Oncology 2018;4(10):1375-1381. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2018.2487
