Joint Center for Radiation Therapy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
Prostate cancer patients commonly use complementary and alternative medications. There has been growing interest in recent years in the role of the herbal medication PC-SPES and the essential nutrients selenium and vitamin E in the prevention and treatment of prostate cancer. This article reviews the preclinical and clinical studies of these therapies. It is critical that health-care professionals be aware of the potential role and side effects of these widely used complementary and alternative therapies.