The effect of Complementary and Alternative Medicines on the symptoms of Cystic Fibrosis patients: A Systematic Review

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is the most common life-threatening hereditary disease among Caucasian populations. Due to the side effects caused by this disease and the high amount of drugs used by the affected patients, performing extensive research seems necessary to find the treatments with greater effectiveness and fewer side effects. The use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is common in both developing and developed countries, but currently available studies performed on the effectiveness of CAM on improving symptoms and reducing complications of CF patients are very limited. This systematic review was performed to evaluate the effects of CAM therapies on patients with CF. Six credible medical databases (including Cochrane, Science Direct, Embase, ISI, PubMed, and Scopus) were investigated from the beginning of 2000 to the end of 2020, in order to find relevant English-language publications. From among 1213 articles screened, 57 studies with 2525 patients were included in this study. These articles were then sub-grouped into four categories, including ‘acupuncture’, ‘body techniques’, ‘dietary supplements/nutrition/diet’, and ‘herbal medicine’.The articles evaluating one of the four parameters of quality of life, pain, pulmonary function, or body mass index were included to be evaluated. Although we have not evaluated all the studies in the field of the effect of complementary medicine on CF, the review consisting of a large number of these articles showed that despite the great potential of complementary and alternative medicines in this field, extensive research is still needed in this regard.