Study Results
The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.
Basic Information
Get a concise snapshot of the trial, including recruitment status, study phase, enrollment targets, and key timeline milestones.
COMPLETED
PHASE2
150 participants
INTERVENTIONAL
2000-09-30
2005-06-30
Brief Summary
Review the sponsor-provided synopsis that highlights what the study is about and why it is being conducted.
Detailed Description
Dive into the extended narrative that explains the scientific background, objectives, and procedures in greater depth.
Eisenberg (1998) reported that more that 26% of his survey sample used "energy healing" within the last year. Most of these practitioners believe that their inner intentions result in the benefits, either through the agency of love, energy, or a Higher Power (Benor 1992). However, the conventional community attributes benefits from these interventions to the patient's hope, expectation, or experience of support from a practitioner (Benson 1996). The proposed study is a double-blind randomized controlled clinical trial of "distant healing intentionality." Distant Healing (DH) is defined as a "mental intention on behalf of one person, to benefit another at a distance." This study will assess whether DH effects survival time and loss of function for glioblastoma patients under conditions where hope and expectation are controlled. The study will include approximately 150 patients who have rapidly progressing glioblastoma and are beginning radiotherapy. Patients will be photographed and assessed for quality of life, psychological status, and physical symptoms as well as health habits and attitude toward DH. After stratification by age and functional status (Karnofsky score), patients will be randomly assigned to either standard treatment with or without DH. Healers from diverse schools and backgrounds from communities across the United States will be assigned to patients by rotation, so that each patient in the DH group will be treated for two weeks by 10 different healers over the 20 week intervention. Experienced healers will have photographs of subjects and send "mental intention for health and well being" to subjects for one hour daily, three times per week. The healing intervention will be performed at a distance, and patients and healers will never meet, nor will patients know their group assignment. The study findings will provide the basis for developing a larger study, definitive trial.
Conditions
See the medical conditions and disease areas that this research is targeting or investigating.
Keywords
Explore important study keywords that can help with search, categorization, and topic discovery.
Study Design
Understand how the trial is structured, including allocation methods, masking strategies, primary purpose, and other design elements.
RANDOMIZED
TREATMENT
Interventions
Learn about the drugs, procedures, or behavioral strategies being tested and how they are applied within this trial.
Distant Healing
Eligibility Criteria
Check the participation requirements, including inclusion and exclusion rules, age limits, and whether healthy volunteers are accepted.
Inclusion Criteria
* Patient is within five weeks of diagnosis confirmed by pathology report.
Exclusion:
* Non-English speaking.
* Inability or unwillingness to fill out questionnaires.
* History of other cancers within the last 2 years (except superficial basal cell, squamous cell carcinoma of the skin), or other concurrent life-threatening conditions.
18 Years
75 Years
ALL
No
Sponsors
Meet the organizations funding or collaborating on the study and learn about their roles.
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)
NIH
Principal Investigators
Learn about the lead researchers overseeing the trial and their institutional affiliations.
Andrew Freinkel, MD
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute
Locations
Explore where the study is taking place and check the recruitment status at each participating site.
California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute
San Francisco, California, United States
Countries
Review the countries where the study has at least one active or historical site.
Other Identifiers
Review additional registry numbers or institutional identifiers associated with this trial.
NCT00058500
Identifier Type: -
Identifier Source: nct_alias