Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM): Databases

ClinicalTrials.gov offers up-to-date information for locating federally and privately supported clinical trials for a wide range of diseases and conditions. A clinical trial (also clinical research) is a research study in human volunteers to answer specific health questions. Interventional trials determine whether experimental treatments or new ways of using known therapies are safe and effective under controlled environments. Observational trials address health issues in large groups of people or populations in natural settings.

ClinicalTrials.gov currently contains 69,844 trials sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, other federal agencies, and private industry. Studies listed in the database are conducted in all 50 States and in 162 countries ClinicalTrials.gov receives over 40 million page views per month 50,000 visitors daily.

HerbMed is provided by the Alternative Medicine Foundation. This interactive database provides information about the twenty most popular herbs. HerbMed also has an enhanced version for a subscription, HerbMedPro.

The searchable database includes all those entries published in the Index since 1996, and thus includes botanical literature appearing since late 1995. The Index contains entries dealing with various aspects of extant and fossil American plants and fungi, including systematics and floristics, morphology, and ecology, as well as economic botany and general botany (publications dealing with botanists, herbaria, etc.). "America" is defined in the broadest possible sense, encompassing land and marine plants and fungi from Greenland to Antarctica. American territory outside this area, e.g., Hawaii, is not included.

The Index to Chiropractic Literature indexes peer-reviewed literature from chiropractic publishers and a few non-peer reviewed items as well. Selected articles are available online for free which is noted in the item's record.

"PDQ (Physician Data Query) is NCI's comprehensive cancer database. It contains peer-reviewed summaries on cancer treatment, screening, prevention, genetics, and supportive care, and complementary and alternative medicine."