Staff View: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use and delays in presentation and diagnosis of breast cancer patients in public hospitals in Malaysia

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use and delays in presentation and diagnosis of breast cancer patients in public hospitals in Malaysia

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is widely used among the breast cancer patients in Malaysia. Delays in presentation, diagnosis and treatment have been shown to impact the disease prognosis. There is considerable use of CAM amongst breast cancer patients. CAM use has been cited as a caus...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Mujar, N.M.M., Dahlui, M., Emran, N.A., Hadi, I.A., Wai, Y.Y., Arulanantham, S., Hooi, C.C., Mohd Taib, N.A.
Format:	Article
Published:	Public Library of Science 2017
Subjects:	R Medicine
Online Access:	http://eprints.um.edu.my/19086/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176394
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

id	my.um.eprints.19086
record_format	eprints
spelling	my.um.eprints.190862018-09-04T04:42:18Z http://eprints.um.edu.my/19086/ Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use and delays in presentation and diagnosis of breast cancer patients in public hospitals in Malaysia Mujar, N.M.M. Dahlui, M. Emran, N.A. Hadi, I.A. Wai, Y.Y. Arulanantham, S. Hooi, C.C. Mohd Taib, N.A. R Medicine Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is widely used among the breast cancer patients in Malaysia. Delays in presentation, diagnosis and treatment have been shown to impact the disease prognosis. There is considerable use of CAM amongst breast cancer patients. CAM use has been cited as a cause of delay in diagnosis and treatments in qualitative studies, however there had not been any confirmatory study that confirms its impact on delays. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the use of CAM among newly diagnosed breast cancer patients was associated with delays in presentation, diagnosis or treatment of breast cancer. This multi-centre cross-sectional study evaluating the time points of the individual breast cancer patients' journey from first visit, resolution of diagnosis and treatments was conducted in six public hospitals in Malaysia. All newly diagnosed breast cancer patients from 1st January to 31st December 2012 were recruited. Data were collected through medical records review and patient interview by using a structured questionnaire. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) was defined as the use of any methods and products not included in conventional allopathic medicine before commencement of treatments. Presentation delay was defined as time taken from symptom discovery to first presentation of more than 3 months. The time points were categorised to diagnosis delay was defined as time taken from first presentation to diagnosis of more than 1 month and treatment delay was defined as time taken from diagnosis to initial treatment of more than 1 month. Multiple logistic regression was used for analysis. A total number of 340 patients participated in this study. The prevalence of CAM use was 46.5% (n = 158). Malay ethnicity (OR 3.32; 95% CI: 1.85, 5.97) and not interpreting symptom as cancerous (OR 1.79; 95% CI: 1.10, 2.92) were significantly associated with CAM use. The use of CAM was associated with delays in presentation (OR 1.65; 95% CI: 1.05, 2.59), diagnosis (OR 2.42; 95% CI: 1.56, 3.77) and treatment of breast cancer (OR 1.74; 95% CI: 1.11, 2.72) on univariate analyses. However, after adjusting with other covariates, CAM use was associated with delays in presentation (OR 1.71; 95% CI: 1.05, 2.78) and diagnosis (OR 2.58; 95% CI: 1.59, 4.17) but not for treatment of breast cancer (OR 1.58; 95% CI: 0.98, 2.55). The prevalence of CAM use among the breast cancer patients was high. Women of Malay ethnicity and not interpreting symptom as cancerous were significantly associated with CAM use. The use of CAM is significantly associated with delay in presentation and resolution of diagnosis. This study suggests further evaluation of access to breast cancer care is needed as poor access may cause the use of CAM. However, since public hospitals in Malaysia are heavily subsidized and readily available to the population, CAM use may impact delays in presentation and diagnosis. Public Library of Science 2017 Article PeerReviewed Mujar, N.M.M. and Dahlui, M. and Emran, N.A. and Hadi, I.A. and Wai, Y.Y. and Arulanantham, S. and Hooi, C.C. and Mohd Taib, N.A. (2017) Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use and delays in presentation and diagnosis of breast cancer patients in public hospitals in Malaysia. PLoS ONE, 12 (4). e0176394. ISSN 1932-6203 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176394 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0176394
institution	Universiti Malaya
building	UM Library
collection	Institutional Repository
continent	Asia
country	Malaysia
content_provider	Universiti Malaya
content_source	UM Research Repository
url_provider	http://eprints.um.edu.my/
topic	R Medicine
spellingShingle	R Medicine Mujar, N.M.M. Dahlui, M. Emran, N.A. Hadi, I.A. Wai, Y.Y. Arulanantham, S. Hooi, C.C. Mohd Taib, N.A. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use and delays in presentation and diagnosis of breast cancer patients in public hospitals in Malaysia
description	Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is widely used among the breast cancer patients in Malaysia. Delays in presentation, diagnosis and treatment have been shown to impact the disease prognosis. There is considerable use of CAM amongst breast cancer patients. CAM use has been cited as a cause of delay in diagnosis and treatments in qualitative studies, however there had not been any confirmatory study that confirms its impact on delays. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the use of CAM among newly diagnosed breast cancer patients was associated with delays in presentation, diagnosis or treatment of breast cancer. This multi-centre cross-sectional study evaluating the time points of the individual breast cancer patients' journey from first visit, resolution of diagnosis and treatments was conducted in six public hospitals in Malaysia. All newly diagnosed breast cancer patients from 1st January to 31st December 2012 were recruited. Data were collected through medical records review and patient interview by using a structured questionnaire. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) was defined as the use of any methods and products not included in conventional allopathic medicine before commencement of treatments. Presentation delay was defined as time taken from symptom discovery to first presentation of more than 3 months. The time points were categorised to diagnosis delay was defined as time taken from first presentation to diagnosis of more than 1 month and treatment delay was defined as time taken from diagnosis to initial treatment of more than 1 month. Multiple logistic regression was used for analysis. A total number of 340 patients participated in this study. The prevalence of CAM use was 46.5% (n = 158). Malay ethnicity (OR 3.32; 95% CI: 1.85, 5.97) and not interpreting symptom as cancerous (OR 1.79; 95% CI: 1.10, 2.92) were significantly associated with CAM use. The use of CAM was associated with delays in presentation (OR 1.65; 95% CI: 1.05, 2.59), diagnosis (OR 2.42; 95% CI: 1.56, 3.77) and treatment of breast cancer (OR 1.74; 95% CI: 1.11, 2.72) on univariate analyses. However, after adjusting with other covariates, CAM use was associated with delays in presentation (OR 1.71; 95% CI: 1.05, 2.78) and diagnosis (OR 2.58; 95% CI: 1.59, 4.17) but not for treatment of breast cancer (OR 1.58; 95% CI: 0.98, 2.55). The prevalence of CAM use among the breast cancer patients was high. Women of Malay ethnicity and not interpreting symptom as cancerous were significantly associated with CAM use. The use of CAM is significantly associated with delay in presentation and resolution of diagnosis. This study suggests further evaluation of access to breast cancer care is needed as poor access may cause the use of CAM. However, since public hospitals in Malaysia are heavily subsidized and readily available to the population, CAM use may impact delays in presentation and diagnosis.
format	Article
author	Mujar, N.M.M. Dahlui, M. Emran, N.A. Hadi, I.A. Wai, Y.Y. Arulanantham, S. Hooi, C.C. Mohd Taib, N.A.
author_facet	Mujar, N.M.M. Dahlui, M. Emran, N.A. Hadi, I.A. Wai, Y.Y. Arulanantham, S. Hooi, C.C. Mohd Taib, N.A.
author_sort	Mujar, N.M.M.
title	Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use and delays in presentation and diagnosis of breast cancer patients in public hospitals in Malaysia
title_short	Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use and delays in presentation and diagnosis of breast cancer patients in public hospitals in Malaysia
title_full	Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use and delays in presentation and diagnosis of breast cancer patients in public hospitals in Malaysia
title_fullStr	Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use and delays in presentation and diagnosis of breast cancer patients in public hospitals in Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed	Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use and delays in presentation and diagnosis of breast cancer patients in public hospitals in Malaysia
title_sort	complementary and alternative medicine (cam) use and delays in presentation and diagnosis of breast cancer patients in public hospitals in malaysia
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2017
url	http://eprints.um.edu.my/19086/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176394
_version_	1643690883063742464
score	13.211869

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use and delays in presentation and diagnosis of breast cancer patients in public hospitals in Malaysia

Similar Items