Complementary Therapy Systems and Their Integrative Evaluation

Article Outline

• Abstract
• Introduction
• Reverse Research Strategies
• Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM)
• Is the Prioritization of RCTs Reliable for Finding the Best Therapy? (“Best Evidence” = “Best Therapy”?)
• Conventional Medicine Between Evidence Base and Clinical Judgment
• Clinical Judgment and Medical Professionalism
• Clinical Research and CAM
• Double Standards? A British Debate
• Pluralistic Therapy Approach and Integration of CAM Methods
• Integrative Evaluation of CAM
• Acknowledgments
• References
• Copyright

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is becoming an integral part of modern medicine. Complementary and alternative medicine therapy systems include natural medicinal products, nonpharmacological treatments, and counselling on health and lifestyle issues. Complementary and alternative medicine concepts are often elaborate, transcending biophysical models and employing the principles of salutogenesis. Evaluations of CAM therapy systems need to be integrative and cover the dimensions of: (1) therapeutic professionalism; (2) patient perspective and public demand; (3) conceptuality; (4) safety, effectiveness, and costs. Complex research strategies are required, which reverse the phases of conventional drug assessment. The predominant use of randomized trials would introduce structural bias and create an artifical picture. Important are evaluations of the whole system in real-world conditions, and surveys on component evaluations. Systemic CAM assessments should consist of a broad array of high-quality research methods: well-conducted randomized and nonrandomized studies, cohort studies, qualitative research, high-quality case reports and case series, studies on patient perspective, safety analyses, economic analyses, etc. Good clinical judgement, a core epistemic element of medicine based on nonstochastic principles, should also be integrated and could reflect routine patient care.

Key words: Complex Intervention, Evidence-based Medicine, Integrative Medicine, Research Methods, Whole System Research

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Introduction 

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) are key issues in the discussion on scientific evidence, clinical experience, medical judgment, and patient-focus in today's medicine.

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) methods usually transcend reductionist biophysical models, using a holistic approach to treat the patient. The goal is an extensive and sustainable cure or improvement, attained by the stimulation of salutogenetic self-healing processes. Treatment is highly individualized according to the needs of the patient, using natural medicinal products (of zoological, herbal, or mineral origin, sometimes potentized), nonpharmacological therapies (eg, acupuncture, acupressure, neural therapy, movement therapies, art therapies, relaxation techniques, biofeedback, chiropractic, meditation, massage, lifestyle changes), and counseling. The physician-patient relationship is particularly important. The treatments are used in addition to conventional medicine (“complementary”) or, in some cases, instead of it. Another term used, especially for research-based CAM systems, is integrative medicine.

The interest in CAM among patients is increasing worldwide, and physicians are also developing a favorable opinion toward many types of CAM.¹, ², ³, ⁴, ⁵, ⁶, ⁷, ⁸, ⁹, ¹⁰, ¹¹, ¹², ¹³, ¹⁴ In a state referendum in Switzerland in 2009, two-thirds of the population voted for the integration of CAM into the healthcare system.

Modern therapies should be effective, safe, and affordable within the healthcare system. Concerning CAM, the critical question therefore is: How can this be assessed while doing justice to scientific principles as well as to the complexity and the specific properties of CAM?

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Reverse Research Strategies 

The evaluation of effectiveness, safety, and costs plays a different role in CAM and in conventional drug therapy, because the two have developed in reverse directions: CAM consists of therapy systems with long traditions in patient care, evolved from distinct concepts, and looking back on times of experience that sometimes stretch over hundreds of years. Only secondary after such development in and from clinical practice, laboratory investigations, and clinical trials come in. Quite different is the situation for conventional drug therapies: they are primarily developed in the laboratory and then tested on animals and on humans in phase I-III studies. Only after this gatekeeping process they are introduced into clinical practice, which will then largely be guided by the study results. Coming from preclinical laboratory development, the remedies' therapeutic potential and safety in real-world practice are hardly calculable. This has lead to drug tragedies, for example, the severe birth defects caused by the supposedly safe and popular sedative thalidomide,¹⁵ or the diethylene glycol poisoning known as the “Sulfanilamide tragedy.”¹⁶ Therefore, clinical trials are the admission ticket to the clinical use of conventional drug therapy, and for this purpose the designs and guidelines of clinical research have been essentially delineated. As a consequence, for example, the members of the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH), which issues the obligatory Good Clinical Practice (GCP)—Guidelines for clinical studies, consist of representatives of the pharmaceutical industry and of drug regulatory agencies.

Hence, for CAM and for conventional drug therapy, the approaches to clinical research follow reverse strategies (Figure 1).

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• Figure 1. 

  Reverse research strategies.

(adapted from ¹¹³)

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Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) 

Clinical research evolved into EBM, its goal being to integrate best external evidence, individual clinical expertise, and patient perspective:¹⁷ patient treatment should be based on clinical research, and the jungle of research results published daily should be systematically processed and made accessible to the practitioners who search for up-to-date knowledge. This sensible bottom-up concept was, however, soon transformed into a top-down approach: EBM principles were incorporated into legislation and used for the increasing regulation of the medical profession and in this way also for decisions regarding the availability and reimbursement of therapies, thus marginalizing the role of clinical expertise and patient perspective.¹⁸, ¹⁹ For this regulatory assessment, external evidence is hierarchically ordered. On top of the hierarchy is the randomized controlled trial (RCT), which is usually the only form of evidence accepted for regulatory decision making. Other research methods play at best a minor role, and clinical judgment has mostly been discredited, its potential power remaining unexplored and undeveloped.

There is no question that good clinical research and particularly RCTs make essential contributions to medicine and patient care. To integrate scientific evidence is an indispensable feature of medical professionalism, in conventional as well as in complementary medicine.²⁰, ²¹

However, the crucial questions about EBM regard the issue of whether the organization of healthcare should be based primarily on certain types of clinical studies (namely RCTs); whether this type of “ best evidence” allows reliable conclusions concerning the “best therapy” for the patient; and whether, for such conclusions, EBM's evidence-hierarchy offers substantial support or is potentially misleading.

These EBM principles, despite their far-reaching consequences for the healthcare system and despite the strict empirical self-conception of EBM, have not themselves been empirically evaluated as to whether disease outcomes are better when treatment follows hierarchical evidence (ie, comparing outcomes of patients treated primarily according to EBM guidelines and patients treated according to the physician's discretion).²² There are several hints that EBM is not necessarily advantageous for patients and costs: three large German RCTs investigated the influence of acupuncture on knee osteoarthritis, migraine, and low back pain compared to placebo acupuncture and to best evidence-based conventional therapy according to guidelines. Amazingly, in the case of knee osteoarthritis and low back pain, the best evidence-based conventional treatment was substantially inferior not only to acupuncture but also to the placebo therapy; there was a large and statistically highly significant effect difference (and for migraine, evidence-based therapy and placebo treatment were comparable).²³, ²⁴, ²⁵ Even though these results are open to interpretation, they still show that the health benefit experienced by patients is not necessarily the greatest when applying RCT-oriented EBM. In a British cluster RCT, when patients with hypertension and type 2 diabetes were treated either according to guidelines or at the physicians' discretion, there was no difference in blood pressure control between the two groups after one year. However, the guideline group was more likely to receive higher doses of antihypertensive drugs and had consulted physicians significantly more often.²⁶

Many physicians and clinical researchers are highly critical of the current outlook of EBM and its instrumentalization for regulatory purposes.²², ²⁷, ²⁸, ²⁹, ³⁰, ³¹, ³², ³³, ³⁴, ³⁵, ³⁶, ³⁷, ³⁸, ³⁹, ⁴⁰, ⁴¹, ⁴² They criticize: the one-sided focus on empiricism (which itself remains outside empirical evaluation and critical discourse); the narrow definition of evidence; the limited benefit for individual patients; the threat to the physician's autonomy and clinical judgment; the impact on the physician-patient relationship; and EBM's top-down revolution of the medical system, with overt totalitarian structures. Furthermore, they criticize the denigration of all other sources of knowledge such as the physicians' clinical experience, tacit knowledge, and the patients' observations, and also the failure to further investigate and assess the process of clinical learning and skill acquisition. They also regret that in the context of the overreaching RCT-alignment, diverse redefinitions occur: patient care transforms to “health technology”; healing and disease alleviation to “primary outcome measure”; physician to “provider”; and patient to “consumer.” Besides all, the medically necessary abilities of the art of treatment and of empathic engagement would continue to whither away.⁴³, ⁴⁴, ⁴⁵, ⁴⁶, ⁴⁷

Critical attitude has grown also in EBM itself, with some of its representatives questioning the strict hierarchization of evidence: “Our main wish, from which all others stem, is that RCTs be taken off their pedestal, their exalted position at the top of an artificial evidence hierarchy; that all forms of evidence be appreciated for what they can offer … no single form of research is best… . We wish to see a diversity of research approaches, rather than a hierarchy.”⁴⁸

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Is the Prioritization of RCTs Reliable for Finding the Best Therapy? (“Best Evidence” = “Best Therapy”?) 

A basic assumption of EBM health policy is that the “best evidence” reflects the “best therapy available.” This conclusion, however, is only valid if the conduction of RCTs is equally feasible for all potential therapies; if the RCTs are conducted under conditions similar to real-world clinical practice; and if RCT results are free from confounding factors—but these three preconditions are not generally met.

When designing RCTs, considerable efforts are made in order to avoid systematic bias affecting the comparison between intervention and control groups, particularly in order to avoid false-positive results. However, this does not mean that RCTs necessarily give an objective picture of therapeutic reality: the use of RCTs promotes some therapies and disadvantages others; the conduction of RCTs is fragile; and the results of RCTs have only limited applicability for clinical practice and leave important questions unanswered:

The prioritizing of healthcare treatments according to the existence of respective RCTs leads to biased therapy selection and not necessarily to the selection of the best therapy for the patient. Therefore, in order to ensure optimal patient care, the physician himself must critically examine and evaluate the existing evidence. He must complement and even correct the external evidence by his own experience, internal evidence, professional knowledge, and by the patient perspective (Figure 2). Health authorities, as well, must appraise RCTs within their context. The authorities must also acknowledge that for therapies with long traditional use and large amounts of other evidence, RCTs are of limited informational value; and that, on the other hand, the physician's discretionary and therapeutic freedom as well as his independent clinical judgment must be maintained.

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• Figure 2. 

  Four sources of evidence relevant for patient-centered, evidence-based medicine.

(adapted from ¹⁷⁵)

Because the traditional use of RCTs does not reasonably address critical clinical questions faced by decision makers like physicians and patients or policy makers and purchasers, there is a need for research alternatives with a practical orientation, such as pragmatic trials⁶⁷, ⁶⁸ or comparative effectiveness research.⁶⁹, ⁷⁰ These studies, however, are complex and expensive. The costs of the ALLHAT study (Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial⁷¹), for instance, comparing four therapies, amounted to 120 million US$.⁷⁰ Such studies can only be conducted for selected clinical questions.

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Conventional Medicine Between Evidence Base and Clinical Judgment 

Conventional medicine today—with its undeniable beneficial therapeutic innovations of the last century—stands between efficacy proofs based on external evidence and, on the other hand, good clinical judgment and its backing by pathophysiological reflections and basic epidemiological principles. Thus, even in a stronghold of clinical research such as the field of cardiology, only 11% of the recommendations in current authoritative guidelines (from the American College of Cardiology or the American Heart Association) are based on level A external evidence (RCTs, meta-analyses), whereas 48% are based on case studies, expert opinions or standards of care.⁷² The situation is similar in oncology: For 14 neoplastic hematologic disorders studied, only 24% of therapy recommendations were supported by level 1 evidence (RCTs), 21% by single-arm prospective studies (level 2), and 55% by retrospective or anecdotal evidence.⁷³ In the case of lung cancer, guideline recommendations are 29% evidence based and 71% consensus based.⁷⁴ Evidence from RCTs (level 1) is available primarily for initial interventions in newly diagnosed disease, hardly for relapsed or refractory disease.⁷³ Concerning surveillance and aftercare of patients having completed primary cancer treatment, external evidence is completely lacking,⁷⁵ and the effectiveness of surgical removal of local malignant tumors will probably never be proven through RCT comparisons of surgery versus no surgical intervention. Furthermore, systematic reviews used to build treatment guidelines for breast and colon cancer do not meet the required quality standards.⁷⁶ As an example for a common and often deadly infectious disease: the current WHO recommendations for the treatment of isoniazid-resistent tuberculosis, which are implemented in 90 countries, are not supported by a single RCT.⁷⁷

In many complex medical fields, evidence-based practice is only marginal and often critically questioned. In paediatric surgery—with its undeniable achievements—publications consist almost exclusively of case reports and case series, whereas RCTs are rare.⁷⁸ In palliative care, physicians see their practice as clearly not evidence based; with patients near death, the conduction of an RCT would bring about immense difficulties. Here, the focus lies not on RCT-testable, standardized treatments for specific diseases, but on the individualized care of the respective patient, addressing his particular needs, his suffering; therapy is oriented toward the whole person, providing a comfortable, holistic environment for him or her. Anecdotal evidence, clinical judgement, intuition, and adaption to the patient are central; EBM evidence is secondary³⁰, ⁷⁹ (“some people would say high-grade evidence is worse than what you see in front of you”⁷⁹). In the mental health field, evidence-based practice is the subject of vigorous controversy—whether the results from the clinical trials can be generally applied to individual patients, or can only be applied to a few standard situations for which clinicians choose the respective intervention anyway, with or without EBM algorithms.³⁴, ⁸⁰

Thus, in conventional medicine, RCTs only have a limited informational value, and other research methods as well as clinical judgment are equally important. Clinical judgment becomes essential whenever the treatment situation is complex; whenever the treatment outcome depends on the therapy provider's skills; and whenever the focus is on individual patients and individual disease characteristics rather than on specific diagnoses—which are all frequent situations in medicine.

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Clinical Judgment and Medical Professionalism 

Clinical judgment is a core element of medical professionalism.²⁰, ²¹, ⁸¹ In general, high expertise is characterized by excellent judgment, which develops from intelligence, knowledge, experience, and continuous critical reflection. Still—although “there is no substitute for excellent judgement”⁸²—in medicine the question arises: is judgment capable of reliably assessing therapy situations, and substantiating internal evidence? Or is it, rather, notoriously mistaken and dependent on external instruction? Can clinical judgment be a true adjunct to external evidence? What are the potentials of its development? These questions have only been investigated very little so far.

Today's implicit model for medical professionalism is technical rationality.⁴⁶, ⁸³: intelligent practice is the application of scientific knowledge: the practitioner hands his unresolved practical problem over to the scientist, the scientist solves it and returns the new scientific knowledge to the practitioner who can then apply this knowledge in his practice. In this process, there appears to be no necessity for clinical judgment apart from the identification of the problems. The dominance of this model, conjunct with limited resources and with liability issues, leads to increasing external regulation of medical practice, to the decline of medical autonomy, to deprofessionalization, and to frustrated physicians.

Researchers on expertise see this model as grossly oversimplified. It fails to account for the heart of professionalism: for its complexity. At best the model suits the situation of novices.⁴⁶, ⁸³, ⁸⁴, ⁸⁵, ⁸⁶ Experts and masters in all disciplines are in command of abilities beyond external knowledge:

•Gestalt recognition. A gestalt is the wholeness of a structure, recognizable independently from the characteristics of its parts.⁹³, ⁹⁴ Gestalt recognition plays a major role in the acquisition of experience, in the development of tacit knowledge, and in experts' judgments.⁸⁶, ⁸⁷, ⁹⁰, ⁹⁵ In medicine, gestalt structures can be discerned when analyzing reliable clinical judgment, for example, on therapy effects or on adverse reactions (Table 2). The certainty of this kind of judgment increases with the complexity of the gestalt relations—as opposed to statistical conclusions from cohort comparisons.⁵⁸, ⁹⁶

Table 2. Criteria of Gestalt-Based Therapy Judgement⁵⁸, ⁹⁶

Strong criteria

- Space pattern correspondence

- Time pattern correspondence

- Morphological correspondence

- Dose-effect correspondence

- Ping-pong (dialogue) correspondence

- Functional therapeutic gestalt

- Functional therapeutic gestalt process

Weak criterion

- High pre/post time ratio

In science itself, the epistemic virtues and the ideals of professionalism have undergone transformations in the 20th century, particularly in regard to the objectivity of knowledge: in the 19th century, the ideal of scientific objectivity was of a mechanical nature, with the guiding ideal of self-surveillance, self-denial, self-elimination, and the exclusion of any interpretation or other forms of “subjectivity,” favoring standardized and mechanical “blind sight” procedures. All attempts to extirpate subjectivity, however, failed. The automation of knowledge acquisition and the algorithmic judgment procedures ultimately got lost in incidental details, in an infinite complexity of variation and a multitude of artefacts, and were useless for pedagogy; furthermore, these techniques could often not be stringently applied or were unsuitable. Onward from the beginning of the 20th century, those ideals changed and were subordinated to the current leading scientific paradigm of professionalism. Now, the roots for scientific accuracy are seen in trained judgment, based on the subjects' expertise, his trained instincts and intuition, self-confidence, experience, and on pattern recognition.⁹⁷

The competent, trained and critically reflected clinical judgment can, in principle, lead to reliable knowledge. It still has its place in the discovery of new therapeutic principles, as was recently demonstrated by the publication of a case study describing the surprising remission of pediatric hemangioma after application of the beta blocker propranolol; an effect that could be reliably reproduced in other children.⁹⁸ Discovery and explanation of therapies follow a distinct logic.⁹⁹ This is relevant also for CAM, because even though an abundance of scientific research is available on CAM, the physicians' and patients' own experience and judgment are often essential in the provision and further development of CAM therapies.

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Clinical Research and CAM 

Complementary and alternative medicine is an area remarkable for its research activity: already in 2006 more than 20,000 controlled clinical studies were found in the relevant databases.¹⁰⁰, ¹⁰¹ There are plenty of blinded or open-label RCTs, well-conducted nonrandomized comparative studies, large healthcare studies, observational studies, safety studies, etc. A large body of preclinical research, Medline-indexed journals on CAM research, international congresses on CAM research, research organizations, academic centers, and a Cochrane Center specifically dedicated to the investigation of CAM also exist. “Evidence-based CAM” is a well-established term, and there is an intensive methodological debate on CAM research. CAM studies comply with the same methodological standards and go through the same scientific peer-review procedures as corresponding studies in conventional medicine. In direct comparisons, the methodological quality of CAM studies does not seem inferior to that of studies on conventional therapies.¹⁰², ¹⁰³

Even though numerous RCTs have been conducted on CAM, they only have a selective or exemplary informational value for the assessment of CAM. One reason is the very large number of therapy options, due to the existence of several thousand medicinal products in different concentrations and dosage forms; of different nonpharmacological treatments; of extensive individual counselling on the current life situation, behavioral patterns, disease coping, and lifestyle; and of multiple modes of combination of these procedures for different patients and indications. Testing all would require hundreds of thousands or even millions of RCTs. Furthermore, RCTs usually do not mirror the real-world clinical practice and complexity of CAM: usually, in RCTs, the effect of a clearly defined and standardized intervention on predefined outcome parameters is studied, which provides information on the course of a likewise clearly defined disease. This presupposes that the disease can be clearly described, appears uniformly, can be treated with the same standardized intervention, and that its improvement can be measured with the same parameter. Even though many CAM procedures are being studied in this way, it is hardly consistent with their practical application:

CAM therapies do not focus on singular pathological processes but rather on the sick patient in his or her whole complexity, including physical, mental, spiritual, and social factors. These are interconnected and need to be addressed in total and on multiple levels. Moreover, CAM therapies aim to support and stimulate autoprotective and (auto-)salutogenetic potentials, mostly with the active cooperation of the patient or of his/her organism (metaphorically speaking: “enabling the patient to swim”¹⁰⁴), rather than directly eliminating the disease or disease symptoms or directly correcting the pathological deviation in a patient being treated passively (“saving the drowning person”¹⁰⁴).¹⁰⁵ Salutogenetic approaches are more complex and need to be more individualized than the pathogenetic approach. Besides the patient's particular health situation, also his environment, family, culture, and socioeconomic factors have to be taken into account, as well as his individual resources that can be mobilized for more autonomy and sense of coherence.², ¹⁰⁶ In people with same diagnoses, the salutogenetic potential and according therapy goals can be very divergent. Accordingly, the repertoire of CAM treatment is complex, and its application highly individualized.

CAM treatments and counseling are provided as integrative systems with interacting components. Accordingly, the effect of complex approaches often are larger than the sum of the components' effects. Therefore, testing isolated components often makes little sense; likewise the focus on single diseases (which often are treated differently in different patients) or on single outcome parameters (which often have different meaning for different people).

Therefore, CAM needs more broadly designed and more comprehensive research methods that study the intact, whole, and complex systems¹⁰⁷, ¹⁰⁸ in order to mirror their real-world practice. These methods have been labelled Whole System Research,¹⁰⁹, ¹¹⁰, ¹¹¹ CAM Systems Research,¹¹², ¹¹³ Whole Medical Systems Research,¹¹⁴ or Complex Intervention Research.¹¹⁵, ¹¹⁶ For example, it is recommended (Figure 3) first to assess the theoretical background and practical experience of the long-standing tradition, followed by safety assessment and then by a pragmatic evaluation of the whole system (as intact as possible), and only afterward to assess selectively isolated components and to elucidate exemplary mechanisms of action.¹¹³ This procedure is explicitly nonreductionist. It places less emphasis on the conduct of singular studies than on suitable research programs and nonhierarchical research networks that are cyclical, flexible, and adaptive and that encompass qualitative as well as quantitative methods.¹¹⁰, ¹¹⁴

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• Figure 3. 

  Researching complex health systems.

(adapted from ¹¹², ¹¹³)

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Double Standards? A British Debate 

Complementary and alternative medicine is often sweepingly criticized for not being “evidence-based,” “evident,” or even for obstructing scientific evaluation.¹¹⁷ Apart from the fact that this critique overlooks the existence of scientific studies, the question arises whether scientific data are at all capable of refuting this type of criticism. British social scientists describe a double standard in demanding evidence for CAM and conventional medicine: on one hand, British national cancer policy advocates, albeit implicitly, the integrative, patient-centered approach of CAM. On the other hand, the implementation of this policy as well as a constructive debate on evidence and effectiveness have been prevented by medical associations (British Medical Association, Royal College of Physicians). Paradigmatic and ideological barriers stand in the way, and insurmountable obstacles are created by using the term evidence very restrictively, despite the general acknowledgment that conventional medicine's evidence base is limited as well and is often far below the required gold standard.⁷⁹ The considerable discrepancy between the ideal of EBM and the actual organizational practice easily leads to flexible and opportunistic adaptivity which is open to subjectivity, influence of medical stakeholders, political constellations, and the professional status and the persuasive power of the specialist. Strict evidence is primarily demanded when therapies are considered not appropriate and when the logic behind the therapy is questioned. The logic behind the therapy and the argumentation skills and societal influence of the proponents can be decisive in determining whether the so-called gold standard of evidence is demanded, or not. This all leads to a “black box” of funding decision making. As a consequence for CAM—which deviates from the mainstream rationales and is seen as a competitor—rigid evidence standards are demanded, as opposed to conventional medicine where these high standards are not universally implemented. This has been characterized as a “double standard,” used instrumentally to exclude CAM.⁷⁹, ¹¹⁸, ¹¹⁹

A rather interesting view of research evidence is presented by the patients: they see the research results as basically important and as not necessarily flawed, but they are largely sceptical of them, particularly when conventional scientists perform research on CAM. Quite generally they doubt that statistical results are of major relevance for their own case. They consider that average probabilities from clinical studies would not allow conclusions about their personal course of disease and about how they would react to treatment. Patients attribute large impact to lifestyle, emotion, and spirituality, and assume that this is not calculable by statistics. Complementary and alternative medicine treatments are chosen independently from the evidence base. More important are the patients' own experiences of benefit, recommendations by his or her physicians, experiences by friends and family members, and the philosophical background of the therapy.⁷⁹, ¹²⁰, ¹²¹

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Pluralistic Therapy Approach and Integration of CAM Methods 

Pluralism and dialogue are key principles for open and tolerant societies, and for the necessity of modern individualization. Critical and constructive pluralistic discourse is the best protection against stagnation, fallacy, and totalitarianism. A key insight in 20th century theory of science was to acknowledge the pluralist structure of science—with its parallel systems both in mathematical as well as in empirical disciplines;¹²², ¹²³, ¹²⁴, ¹²⁵ with its pluralistic concepts of explanation,¹²⁶ its complementary¹²⁷ and competing¹²⁸ models, its multiple levels of understanding,¹²⁹ and its plurality of thought-styles and thought-collectives.¹³⁰, ¹³¹, ¹³² Accordingly, a pluralistic healthcare system¹⁰⁵, ¹³³, ¹³⁴, ¹³⁵, ¹³⁶ supported by an ongoing critical discourse and scientific research, is the appropriate answer to the pluralistic structures of society and science, and the adequate response to the manifold diversities and complexities of disease.

For what reasons should CAM be accessible to patients?

In this context fits the observation that CAM physicians have longer consultations with their patients than conventional physicians.¹⁴⁰, ¹⁴¹, ¹⁴², ¹⁴³, ¹⁴⁴, ¹⁶⁷, ¹⁶⁸, ¹⁶⁹ Longer consultations are typical for patients with chronic disease, ill-defined problems, and social and psychological issues. On the other hand, longer consultations are associated with favorable outcomes, lifestyle, and prevention intervention, greater enablement and patient satisfaction, fewer prescriptions and referrals, less follow-up appointments and return visits, and also decreased stress for the physician.¹⁷⁰

Hence, a pluralistic therapy approach with the integration of CAM treatments—depending on the patients' situation and preferences—can be a meaningful adjunct to conventional medicine.

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Integrative Evaluation of CAM 

Evidence-based medicine defines itself as the integration of the best external evidence, individual clinical expertise, and patient perspective.¹⁷ This broad definition must be taken into account also on the regulatory level; otherwise, it will remain an empty phrase. Accordingly, therapy evaluation must be based on all of it: external evidence, clinical expertise, and patient perspective. Furthermore, because CAM is not mainstream, additional questions arise concerning the conceptual background and therapeutic professionalism.²⁰

In case of external evidence (which includes the scientific evaluation of other physicians' clinical expertise), the evaluation of a complex therapy system used for decades or centuries is a different challenge than the evaluation of a single, newly synthesized drug. For the assessment of a whole therapy system, it is neither feasible nor meaningful to do RCTs on each single one of its medicinal products, and for every one of its potential indications and every one of its combinations with other relevant therapies. Also questionable would be to identify best research evidence just by the EBM-hierarchy of study designs. The evaluation of a CAM system should rather be based on the totality of the respective research material that should be critically examined regarding methodological quality, clinical meaningfulness, and practical relevance. These results can then be integrated into an overall synthesis (Figure 4).

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• Figure 4. 

  Information synthesis from different kinds of evidence.⁵⁶

Altogether, to adequately evaluate CAM systems, an integrative assessment system is needed. It should be able to answer the following questions:

This total procedure implies the development of research programs. There is a necessity for the developement of scientific expertise within the members of the respective CAM systems, for the assessment of the financial aspects of the necessary research projects, and for maintaining a constructively critical dialogue between CAM and conventional medicine.

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Acknowledgments 

We are grateful for financial support by Christophorus Stiftungsfonds, Software-AG Stiftung Associations of Swiss Physicians for Complementary Medicine (UNION), EbiPharm, and Anthrosana.

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