Characteristic Analysis of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Randomized Controlled Trials of Oncology: A Comparison of Published Studies

Background: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has been widely used by cancer patients and oncologists in the past decades. The present study aimed to examine and compare the characteristics and registration status of published studies in a sample of recently published CAM randomized controlled trial (RCT) reports of oncology in leading journals of 3 categories: general and internal medicine (GIM), clinical oncology (CO), and CAM. Methods: Articles published in the top 5 journals of the 3 categories from 2006 to 2015 were searched in PubMed. Basic characteristics, registration information, impact factor, and citations were identified and extracted from the included RCTs. Data were summarized by frequency, mean, and median and compared using χ(2) test and Kruskal-Wallis H test. Results: A total of 59 RCTs were included; among them, 34 (58%) could be identified with a registration number. GIM journals (15) enjoyed the highest average number of citations per article, followed by CO (12) and CAM (3) journals (P < .0001). ClinicalTrials.gov was the most popular registry for these RCTs. Of the RCTs registered in ClinicalTrials.gov, 24% (4/17) of the published studies in CO journals put their results in the registry; however, no study in GIM and CAM journals put the result in the registry (P = .372). Conclusion: The top GIM, CO, and CAM journals rarely published CAM RCTs of oncology from 2006 to 2015, and the CAM articles of oncology were less cited. However, there was a clear improvement in the trial registration rate over the past decades.