| Summary: | <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This article reports a survey conducted in Hong Kong on the cancer patients' attitudes towards Chinese medicine treatment.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Cancer patients from three Chinese medicine clinics and one oncology clinic were interviewed with a structured questionnaire.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of a total of 786 participants included in the study, 42.9% used Western medicine only; 57.1% used at least one form of Chinese medicine; 5 participants used Chinese medicine only; and 56.5% used Chinese medicine before/during/after Western medicine treatment. Commonly used Western medicine and Chinese medicine treatments included chemotherapy (63.7%), radiotherapy (62.0%), surgery (57.6%), Chinese herbal medicine (53.9%) and Chinese dietary therapy (9.5%). Participants receiving chemotherapy used Chinese medicine (63.3%) more than those receiving any other Western medicine treatments. Spearman correlation coefficients showed that the selection of Chinese medicine was associated with the cancer type (r<sub>s </sub>= -1.36; <it>P </it>< 0.001), stage (r<sub>s </sub>= 0.178; <it>P </it>< 0.001), duration (r<sub>s </sub>= -0.074; <it>P </it>= 0.037), whether receiving chemotherapy (r<sub>s </sub>= 0.165; <it>P </it>< 0.001) and palliative therapy (r<sub>s </sub>= 0.087; <it>P </it>= 0.015). Nearly two-thirds of the participants (N = 274) did not tell their physicians about using Chinese medicine. Over two-thirds of all participants (68.2%) believed that integrated Chinese and Western medicine was effective.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Chinese medicine is commonly used among Hong Kong cancer patients. The interviewed cancer patients in Hong Kong considered integrative Chinese and Western medicine is an effective cancer treatment.</p>
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