Awesome article on chemotherapy~

jojo68

I thought this article was interesting, especially the following quote...

"Chemotherapy has never been shown to have curative effects for cancer. By contrast, the body can still cure itself, which it actually tries to do by developing cancer. Cancer is more a healing response than it is a disease. The "disease" is the body's attempt to cure itself of an existing imbalance. And sometimes, this healing response continues even if a person is subjected to chemotherapy (and/or radiation). Unfortunately, as the previously mentioned research has demonstrated, the chances for a real cure are greatly reduced when patients are treated with chemotherapy drugs."

http://www.ihealthtube.com/aspx/article.aspx?id=2368

Lily55

Yes - I am in no doubt at all that I did the right thing in rejecting and refusing chemotherapy, even through several doctors clearly thought I was mad and wrong, but since then I am constantly told I am "very high risk of recurrence" which does not help my state of mind at times and it almost sems like they say it to scare me to get me to agree to horrible treatments, like radiotherapy but I am starting on a regime of natural health boosters now.....

jojo68

Cannot agree with you more!

Husband11

Is this really appropriate in the Complementary and Holistic Medicine forum?

"Cancer is more a healing response than a disease."  If that's correct, how many people do you know that were healed by the occurance of a cancer?

Momine

Timothy, I think most people are aware that this is not accurate. It is, of course, strictly true that chemo is not a cure. As for now, there is no cure. But the jump from that to the conclusion that chemo either doesn't work or else only does harm is pretty far-fetched in my opinion.

My aunt has stage 4 cancer. When DXed stage 4, she had mets on her liver and in her abdominal cavity. She did 6 rounds of taxotere and is now NED. It is not a cure. The mets will come back when you are stage 4. But she is 75. for the last year (after the chemo) she has felt well and enjoyed being cancer-free. Hopefully she will get a few more years before the beast returns. She is very happy to have gained this extra time, even if she knows that the cancer will eventually kill her (unless a bus gets her first or something).

Husband11

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15894097

Lancet. 2005 May 14-20;365(9472):1687-717.

Effects of chemotherapy and hormonal therapy for early breast cancer on recurrence and 15-year survival: an overview of the randomised trials.

Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group (EBCTCG).

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Quinquennial overviews (1985-2000) of the randomised trials in early breast cancer have assessed the 5 year and 10-year effects of various systemic adjuvant therapies on breast cancer recurrence and survival. Here, we report the 10-year and 15-year effects.

METHODS:

Collaborative meta-analyses were undertaken of 194 unconfounded randomised trials of adjuvant chemotherapy or hormonal therapy that began by 1995. Many trials involved CMF (cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, fluorouracil), anthracycline-based combinations such as FAC (fluorouracil, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide) or FEC (fluorouracil, epirubicin, cyclophosphamide), tamoxifen, or ovarian suppression: none involved taxanes, trastuzumab, raloxifene, or modern aromatase inhibitors.

FINDINGS:

Allocation to about 6 months of anthracycline-based polychemotherapy (eg, with FAC or FEC) reduces the annual breast cancer death rate by about 38% (SE 5) for women younger than 50 years of age when diagnosed and by about 20% (SE 4) for those of age 50-69 years when diagnosed, largely irrespective of the use of tamoxifen and of oestrogen receptor (ER) status, nodal status, or other tumour characteristics. Such regimens are significantly (2p=0.0001 for recurrence, 2p<0.00001 for breast cancer mortality) more effective than CMF chemotherapy. Few women of age 70 years or older entered these chemotherapy trials. For ER-positive disease only, allocation to about 5 years of adjuvant tamoxifen reduces the annual breast cancer death rate by 31% (SE 3), largely irrespective of the use of chemotherapy and of age (<50, 50-69, > or =70 years), progesterone receptor status, or other tumour characteristics. 5 years is significantly (2p<0.00001 for recurrence, 2p=0.01 for breast cancer mortality) more effective than just 1-2 years of tamoxifen. For ER-positive tumours, the annual breast cancer mortality rates are similar during years 0-4 and 5-14, as are the proportional reductions in them by 5 years of tamoxifen, so the cumulative reduction in mortality is more than twice as big at 15 years as at 5 years after diagnosis. These results combine six meta-analyses: anthracycline-based versus no chemotherapy (8000 women); CMF-based versus no chemotherapy (14,000); anthracycline-based versus CMF-based chemotherapy (14,000); about 5 years of tamoxifen versus none (15,000); about 1-2 years of tamoxifen versus none (33,000); and about 5 years versus 1-2 years of tamoxifen (18,000). Finally, allocation to ovarian ablation or suppression (8000 women) also significantly reduces breast cancer mortality, but appears to do so only in the absence of other systemic treatments. For middle-aged women with ER-positive disease (the commonest type of breast cancer), the breast cancer mortality rate throughout the next 15 years would be approximately halved by 6 months of anthracycline-based chemotherapy (with a combination such as FAC or FEC) followed by 5 years of adjuvant tamoxifen. For, if mortality reductions of 38% (age <50 years) and 20% (age 50-69 years) from such chemotherapy were followed by a further reduction of 31% from tamoxifen in the risks that remain, the final mortality reductions would be 57% and 45%, respectively (and, the trial results could well have been somewhat stronger if there had been full compliance with the allocated treatments). Overall survival would be comparably improved, since these treatments have relatively small effects on mortality from the aggregate of all other causes.

INTERPRETATION:

Some of the widely practicable adjuvant drug treatments that were being tested in the 1980s, which substantially reduced 5-year recurrence rates (but had somewhat less effect on 5-year mortality rates), also substantially reduce 15-year mortality rates. Further improvements in long-term survival could well be available from newer drugs, or better use of older drugs.

lThe 2000 EBCTCG overview: a widening gap. [Lancet. 2005]

Momine

Timothy, thanks for posting that.

SelenaWolf

I was appalled to read the ihealthtube article, which was so full of misinformation and inaccuracies it was deeply upsetting.  A person can, indeed, die of metastatic colon cancer... even after the colon has been removed.  All it takes is for one cancer cell to have escaped the surgery and gone dormant, thus avoiding being impacted by chemotherapy.  Who knows what triggered it into growing again, but it did.

To blame the return of the cancer entirely on the chemotherapy is simplistic and inaccurate.  As far as I'm concerned, it's irresponsible journalism that is, simply, not backed up by hard science.   And the fact that some people will read this and believe it, and base their decisions to not have proper treatment on it, is, like I said, deeply upsetting.

"... good girls never made history ..."

Momine

Selena, I tried to track down the "Allen Levin, MD" who is quoted in the article. The citation gives a book title, but Levin must be quoted in the book, i.e. he did not write it. Spelled as Allen, he only shows up for the same quote on various alternative medicine sites. Spelled as Alan, I found an interview that may be with the same guy: http://www.whale.to/a/levin.html He sounds like a nice man, who may have some good ideas, but also like a bit of a nut.

Anonymous

I think this article belongs in the ALTERNATIVE FORUM - it was written by a person who describes himself as "is a medical intuitive"

Reminds me of the old adage - "when you're holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail."  When an individual chooses not to have chemotherapy, anything which "supports" that choice, seems important.  Again, if of interest to anyone, it would be in the Alternative Forum.

Good luck to all with the treatments they have chosen.

NattyOnFrostyLake

Great idea, Sunflowers! You can post it there too.

suzieq60

Well, my husband was diagnosed with mets to the lung from bowel cancer 6 years ago - conventional treatment took care of it.

Momine

Suzie, that is great! 

SelenaWolf

Certainly, I agree that a person's choice to not have chemotherapy (or surgery or radiation, or tamoxifen, etc.) is entirely personal.  Everyone has their limits on what they are prepared to do and what they are not, and I do respect that.  But I would hope (pray!) that people are basing these decisions on solid information provided by their oncologists, backed up by science and after a thorough- and critical weighing of the pro's and con's, and what it all means when it's applied to their particular situation.  Then, if they still are of the opinion that they are not prepared to do it, then that is their right and their choice.

The idea of basing such an important decision on an article like the above, scares me to death and, yet, I'm sure people will read the article and think that it's sound.  It's sad and frightening.  Sometimes I do wonder if the internet is such a good idea; there is so much junk out there.

dlb823

From the OP article... "In 1990, the highly respected German epidemiologist, Dr. Ulrich Abel from the Tumor Clinic of the University of Heidelberg, conducted the most comprehensive investigation of every major clinical study on chemotherapy drugs ever done."

1990?  That's 23 years ago!  Medicine has made HUGE strides in the form of more targeted tx, especially in the past 5 to 7 years -- new tests (Oncotype-DX, FISH, etc.), new drugs (Herceptin, Taxotere, etc.).   

And re. this... "The research covered data from the Cancer Registry in Australia and the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results in the USA for the year 1998."

Same observation as above.  Those surviving 5 or 10 years as of 1998 would have been treated between 1988 and 1993 -- way before 3rd generation chemo drugs and everything else we know today about DNA.     

And yes, as sad as the Tony Snow story is ... (and I, too, believe chemo probably killed him), the writer IMO has no knowledge of Snow's case, and blaming chemo is pure speculation.  He might have died sooner with either no tx or holistic tx.  We have no way of knowing.     Deanna

jojo68

Timothy....I would say a resounding YES this is fine in the Holistic forum!  What the heck!  I am the original poster and, once again, i am kind of being attacked.  Why is it okay to attack my beliefs, but I am not allowed to have an opinion about yours as per our other links that we have traded thoughts on???

Momine

Joelle, some of us try not to operate on "belief," but rather try to obtain facts on which to base our decisions about things like cancer treatment. You are certainly entitled to hold any belief you like, but you can't expect people to treat belief as fact.

SelenaWolf

Nor can you expect people to not point out that what you are professing is a personal belief rather than a scientific fact.  If you choose not to have conventional treatment based on your personal beliefs, that is entirely your right.  We're not disputing your right to do so.  What we are disputing are your sources.