Combining complementary medicine with conventional cancer treatment opens up the possibility of drug interactions that can make cancer treatment ineffective.
Data concerning utilization are only available for complementary medicine as a whole; for many countries, the uptake is shown to be high and still increasing.
However, it becomes extremely difficult for any one complementary medicine to show significant efficacy above and beyond what is routinely prescribed for the patient.
It has been reported that universities are increasingly turning their backs on homoeopathy and complementary medicine amid opposition from the scientific community to pseudo-science degrees.