Scientific relevance of the Vademecum of Anthroposophic Medicines

Harald J. Hamre
Article-ID: DMS-20920-EN
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14271/DMS-20920-EN

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The Vademecum of Anthroposophic Medicines (Anthroposophic Medicinal Products, AMPs), 4th edition, covers 627 AMP groups with 1,778 indications, recommendations for use and other core information. The Vademecum is based on a systematic survey and analysis of physicians’ clinical experiences with the respective AMPs. While originally developed as a practical tool for physicians, the Vademecum can also be used for scientific purposes.

AMP treatment involves more than 1,000 products, used in different ways. Accordingly, there are thousands of therapy options that cannot be evaluated in clinical studies or high-quality case reports. Therefore, for most indications of AMPs, physician reports of their clinical experience with the AMP remain the best available evidence for efficacy/effectiveness. In order to secure the continued existence of the body of AMPs in the future, such evidence is needed. And here the Vademecum can have a purpose. Compared to many other experiential reports of AMP therapy, the Vademecum has a number of strengths: Participation of 274 anthroposophic physicians of different specialties from 19 countries; systematic detailed survey; critical assessment of all experiential reports by an independent, interdisciplinary panel; explicit use also of experiences of lack of efficacy; enhancement by a comprehensive, representative literature database; independence of industry.

An important limitation, compared to clinical studies, stems from the design (retrospective overall assessment of the AMP therapy option instead of prospective documentation of consecutive patients). In the domain of physicians’ experiential treatment reports, the Vademecum has set standards which other experiential reports will have to be judged by.

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