Research on complementary/alternative medicine for patients with breast cancer: a review of the biomedical literature

CRD COMMENTARY: This was a poor review which made no attempt to synthesise the results of the included studies. A reasonable literature search was conducted. However, since the review was limited to studies published in English, important studies may have been excluded. The inclusion criteria were clearly stated. Studies of any design, other than case studies and reviews, were eligible for inclusion. It may have been more appropriate to limit the review to higher quality studies, such as RCTs, controlled studies and cohort studies. The authors state that the quality of the included studies was assessed, but the items on which they were assessed related more to the reporting of results than to whether a study was likely to produce biased estimates of results. No details of the review process were reported. Appropriate study details were tabulated but the results of the included studies were not synthesised. These studies may have included important information; this would have been useful information to report even if certain treatments were found to be ineffective. The authors' conclusions are not supported by the results presented.