The Effect of Integrative Naturopathic Oncology Including Modulated Electrohyperthermia on Survival Outcome among Glioblastoma Multiforme Patients: A Retrospective Study.

The short version

This retrospective study compared 67 people with grade IV glioblastoma (GBM), a fast-growing brain cancer, who received integrative naturopathic care at a Canadian clinic with 243 matched patients from the U.S. SEER cancer registry. The clinic's approach added modulated electro-hyperthermia (mEHT), a radiofrequency treatment that heats tumour tissue, plus high-dose intravenous vitamin C, supplements, acupuncture and diet counselling, on top of standard surgery, radiotherapy and temozolomide chemotherapy. Standard care for GBM extends median survival only to about 14.6 months, so the authors looked for any signal that the extra treatments might add survival time. Patients had at least six mEHT sessions between 2010 and 2024, with a median of 13 sessions of up to 60 minutes each at powers rising from 50 to 140 watts. Controls were matched on age, sex, diagnosis year and whether they had surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. To avoid giving the clinic group credit for the months before they arrived, survival was counted from the start of clinic treatment (or the matched patient's start date for controls) and compared with Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox regression. Median survival from that starting point was 15 months with integrative care versus 11 months in controls, and the hazard ratio of 0.72 (95% CI 0.53-1.00, p = 0.05) sat right at the edge of statistical significance (a 28% lower hazard of death). The difference was concentrated in people who started within 120 days of diagnosis (hazard ratio 0.52, p = 0.006, roughly half the hazard of death) and in those under 50 (0.51, p = 0.009); starting later or being 50 or older showed no difference (0.98 and 0.96). Treatment began a median of 124 days after diagnosis, so these patients had already survived that long. The authors saw no seizures or other side effects. Those subgroup analyses were exploratory, unadjusted for multiple testing, and the matched groups still differed in how many had chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Because treatment was not randomised and many factors that shape GBM survival, such as tumour genetics, extent of surgery and general fitness, were unavailable, the results cannot show that the integrative care caused the longer survival. Clinic patients also paid for their own care, which may favour those with more resources, and the dose and timing of mEHT varied between individuals. The authors describe the findings as hypothesis-generating, a signal rather than an effect estimate, and call for randomised trials.

Key findings

• This study compared 67 glioblastoma patients (a fast-growing brain cancer) who added integrative naturopathic treatments, including a heat therapy called modulated electro-hyperthermia (mEHT), to standard care with 243 matched patients from a national U.S. cancer registry.
• Measured from the start of clinic treatment, median survival was 15 months versus 11 months, and the hazard ratio (the relative chance of dying at any moment; below 1.0 means lower risk) was 0.72, with a range (0.53-1.00) that just touches 1.0, so the overall result was borderline rather than clearly significant.
• The apparent benefit was concentrated in people who started within 120 days of diagnosis (hazard ratio 0.52) and in those under 50 (0.51), while later starters and those 50 or older showed no difference (0.98 and 0.96), but these subgroup results were exploratory.
• The authors reported no seizures or other side effects during or right after treatment, although the treatment package also included high-dose intravenous vitamin C, acupuncture, supplements and the prescribed dexamethasone and/or boswellic acid, so the effect of mEHT alone cannot be separated.
• Because patients chose and paid for their own treatment, were compared with registry controls, and key prognostic factors such as tumour genetics and extent of surgery were missing, the study cannot show that the treatments caused the longer survival.

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