60 Percent of Cancer Patients Try Nontraditional Methods

At the other end of the spectrum are quacks selling fringe therapies and supplements through testimonials, not proof. Laetrile, "detoxifying" coffee enemas, shark cartilage -- the miracle cures change but the bogus claims remain the same.

"What I am noticing in the last year or two is a resurgence of these things. It's coming back," said Barrie Cassileth, integrative medicine chief at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and a longtime adviser to the American Cancer Society.

The Internet fuels this trend by letting people buy direct and bypass doctors who could help them see through scams and misleading claims of scientific proof. Sadly, some Web sites are run by quacks -- a "doctor" title doesn't mean the remedy is safe or effective.

"A lot of these doctors prey on people's insecurities and need for hope," said Dr. Roy Herbst, lung cancer chief at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

About 7 percent of cancer patients go straight to an alternative approach, sometimes traveling to Mexico, the Bahamas or a "spa" in Europe for treatments not allowed in the United States, Cassileth's research found. Most cancers spread slowly, so people can be temporarily fooled into thinking herbs or special diets are keeping it at bay.

"After they've been there some months they'll realize things are not working. But with cancer, you get one chance. By the time they get back to a reasonable hospital, they're dead. Nothing can be done for them," she said.

Ways that supplements and fringe therapies can harm:

• Financially. Pills that seem cheap actually cost a lot if they are worthless or are bought in place of real medicine, fresh fruits and vegetables, or other things known to boost health.
• Medically. Trying an alternative remedy can delay the time until a patient receives an effective treatment, allowing the cancer to spread. A potentially curable cancer may become untreatable -- as Leslee Flasch found out when she belatedly sought the surgery that had been recommended. Having such an advanced cancer without standard medical care must have caused excruciating pain, said one of her physicians, Dr. Lodovico Balducci at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. 
• Physically. Supplements, even those claimed to be natural, have biological effects and can interact dangerously with a wide array of medicines. 
• Psychologically. Futile treatment raises false hope and deprives people of the chance to prepare for the end of life and die in dignity and comfort.