10 problems with Conventional Cancer Treatment
Most people with a cancer diagnosis undergo Conventional Cancer Treatment consisting mainly of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy because they are told by cancer doctors that this approach offers the only hope of survival. They believe the cancer industry hype about the great advances being made due to earlier diagnosis and “better treatments”.
However, this is contradicted by scientific research which shows that for most patients, Conventional Cancer Treatment alone does not result in long-term survival. All too often patients get short-term remission followed by a deadly recurrence.
The purpose of this article is to bring balance by pointing out some of the problems associated with the use of Conventional Cancer Treatment to the exclusion of other options that have been proven to extend survival.
Consider the following evidence:
1. Conventional Cancer Treatment rarely cures cancer
The authors of this study at Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins said: Although most patients with cancer respond to therapy [i.e. tumor shrinks], few are cured. Moreover, objective clinical responses to treatment often do not even translate into substantial improvements in overall survival.
This 2018 study concluded:
The focus of this perspective was to assess the limitations of current therapeutic approaches to cancer. We presented scientific analyses of the disturbing data on the outcome failure rates of 90% (±5) on current therapeutic approaches for solid tumors. In the last six decades, only limited success was achieved with drugs such as Gleevec or few other modalities that [were] used for treating patients with hematopoietic cancers [leukaemia etc] and soft tissue or seminoma [i.e. testicular cancer].
2. Conventional Cancer Treatment “success” is all too often only temporary.
This study from Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Rome, Italy says an estimated 85% of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer who achieve a full remission following first-line therapy will develop recurrent disease. Ovarian cancer is not curable.
Soft tissue sarcomas (cancers that start in muscles, tendons, fat, lymph and blood vessels, and nerves) recur in approximately 50% of patients after adjuvant chemotherapy says this study published in American Society of Clinical Oncology Educational Book
This study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology says almost 30% of patients with breast cancer who are free of disease after initial local and regional treatments present with disease recurrence during follow-up.
This study published in the World Journal of Surgical Oncology, says 32 of the 90 patients with Pancreatic cancer who underwent curative surgery had a recurrence within 1 year.
The list goes on.
For so long, the mainstays of cancer treatment have been chemotherapy and radiation. They’re toxic and primitive. We need to look at it in a rational way and say, how can we help the body heal itself?
Eva Vertes – Scientist
3. Conventional Cancer Treatment causes Long-term or Latent injury.
Even those who survive experience long-term or latent side effects as a result of the treatments that are more toxic than the cancer they are supposed to heal.
Chemotherapy and other cancer drugs
This meta-analysis published in 2019 by The American College of Cardiology, reported that cardiovascular disease symptoms and heart attacks were observed in as little as 12 hours of intravenous infusions of 5-FU. Toxic reactions also include heart failure, seizures, and coma.
This study by Public Health England and Cancer Research UK looked at more than 28,364 women with breast cancer and 15,045 patients with lung cancer who underwent chemotherapy in 2014. Of those treated 1,974 died within 30 days. The research was published in The Lancet Oncology in September 2016.
This study concluded: although this study does not provide definitive proof of a causative role of chemotherapy in ischemic stroke, a relation is suggested by the short interval between administration of chemotherapy and the occurrence of ischemic stroke.
See more on Chemotherapy page
Radiation
Leukemia and Lymphoma Society warns radiation therapy to the chest can cause Lung damage, Heart damage, Bone cancer, Breast cancer, and Thyroid cancer.
In a Safety Statement, Accuray (manufacturer of radiation therapy equipment) said: Side effects can be severe, however, leading to pain, alterations in normal body functions (for example, urinary or salivary function), deterioration of quality of life, permanent injury and even death.
See more on Radiation Treatment page
Surgery
Sometimes surgery is necessary. For example to de-bulk a tumour that’s pressing on a vital organ. However, surgery can also cause real problems.
What are the dangers of surgery?
Risk of metastasis (cancer spreading)
Mild or severe bleeding – may require a transfusion
Numbness and tingling which may be permanent
Lymphedema – swelling in arms or legs
Pain, Damage to other organs
Urinary Incontinence, Impotence
Heart problems, Breathing problems
Pneumonia, Blood clots, Death (rare)
Atrial fibrillation after surgery increases risk of heart attacks, strokes
An irregular heartbeat following surgery known as post-operative atrial fibrillation (POAF) often is dismissed as a transient phenomenon. But a study has found that POAF can significantly increase the risk of heart attack or stroke during the first 12 months after surgery.
Sources: Mayo Clinic, Science Daily / University of Toronto, NHS, American Cancer Society
Study Prevalence of Prior Cancer Among Persons Newly Diagnosed With Cancer: An Initial Report From the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program found:
In an analysis of 740 990 persons in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program newly diagnosed with cancer, approximately 25% of older adults (≥65 years) and 11% of younger adults had a history of prior cancer. Prevalence of prior cancer ranged from 4% to 37% according to age and incident cancer type, with most prior cancers diagnosed in a different cancer site.
See more on Surgery page
4. Conventional Cancer Treatment can do more harm than the cancer
Study of 35,958 survivors of Head and Neck cancer (72% had undergone radiation) concluded:
Many long-term HNSCC [head and neck squamous cell carcinoma] survivors die from cancers other than HNSCC and from non-cancer causes.
[Note: For patients who survived at least three years from a diagnosis of HNSCC, secondary cancers and cardiovascular issues killed 44% of these patients as opposed to only 29% who died from the actual cancer. In other words, the cure is worse than the disease]
This 2017 study published in Annals of Oncology concluded: Risk of noncancer deaths now surpasses that of cancer deaths, particularly for young patients in the year after diagnosis.
After decades of chemotherapy, surgery and radiation, it’s quite clear even to the terminally blinkered these treatments don’t
‘cure’ cancer.
This 2017 study found that a combination of Herceptin plus doxorubicin (both used in breast cancer patients) leads to more than a seven-fold increase in risk of heart failure. This progressively increases during the 3–5 years after treatment completion and can persist many years.
Journal of the National Cancer Institute had this to say:
Furthermore, there are reasons to believe that treatment-related deaths may occur well after a 1-month period. A person who has a lobectomy for an early lung cancer may be “cured” of cancer but die of pneumonia 6 months later. Although the surgery increased the likelihood of getting pneumonia, under current guidelines it would not be coded as a lung cancer death. Similarly, a person who has a colectomy may also be “cured” of cancer but die of an intestinal obstruction 6 months after the surgery. Although the surgery increased the likelihood of the obstruction, under current guidelines it would not be coded as a colon cancer death. Other treatments for cancer may also increase the long-term chance of death [e.g., radiation and vascular disease, chemotherapy/radiation, and second cancers] and theoretically should be included in cancer mortality.
5. Conventional Cancer Treatment can cause cancer to spread
Chemotherapy and other cancer drugs
This is from Second Cancers – Landmark Studies:
Breast cancer patients initially treated with tamoxifen have a twofold increased risk of uterine corpus cancer, with particularly high risks seen for rare tumors of the mixed mullerian type.
Platinum-based chemotherapy for ovarian cancer increased the risk of leukemia three- to fourfold, and risk rose with increasing cumulative doses to reach eightfold.
See more on Chemotherapy page
Radiation
This study done at UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center found radiation actually induces breast cancer cells to form more tumors. Plus, malignancy in radiation treated breast cells was likely to be 30 times more probable. Radiation actually promotes malignancy in cancer cells instead of killing them, and it allows cancers to grow back with even greater force.
Breast irradiation causes breast and lung cancer
The Second Cancers – Landmark Studies found: Young women treated with radiotherapy for Hodgkin’s disease (HD) experienced a threefold increased risk of breast cancer, which rose with higher radiation doses to the breast. HD patients treated with radiotherapy had a sixfold risk of lung cancer, with risk related to dose of radiation received.
Women who received pelvic radiotherapy for cervical cancer were found to have a twofold risk of new cancers in organs that were heavily irradiated.
This study published in International Journal of Radiation Oncology – Biology – Physics says: Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) allows dose to be concentrated in the tumor volume while sparing normal tissues. However, the downside to IMRT is the potential to increase the number of radiation-induced second cancers…
…Intensity-modulated radiation therapy may double the incidence of solid cancers in long-term survivors.
See more on Radiation Treatment page
Surgery
For example, this study published in Cancer Research says: Metastasis is a common cause of morbidity and mortality in cancer patients. Both experimental and clinical evidence lend support to the idea that surgery which is intended to be a curative option to remove and reduce tumor mass, can paradoxically also augment development of metastases.
This study says: We have shown indirect but compelling evidence that there is dormancy in breast cancer and that surgery to remove the primary tumor does occasionally break dormancy.
This study says: Primary tumor removal, usually considered intrinsically beneficial, can perturb metastatic homeostasis, and for some patients results in the acceleration of metastatic cancer.
See more on Surgery page