Alternative Cancer Therapies

There are very strong feelings surrounding alternativemonths of longevity. Or it may mean, as is often the
cancer therapies. There are frequent televisioncase, that there is no additional longevity but there is
snippets and online blogs bemoaning the deaths losta longer time before the cancer recurs.
to alternative treatments used after well recognizedMany doctors truly believe the advertising figures
medical treatments have been turned down by thegiven to them by the drug companies about their
patient. There was one a few weeks ago when aproducts, but do not take the time to find out what
well known mini-celebrity had turned down chemo tothe figures actually mean in terms of additional
use alternative therapies and the message to themonths of disease free time and increased longevity
public was clear: she would have lived if she had beenfor their patients.
sensible, like most people, and submitted to theAs an example one drug was touted as 62%
chemotherapy treatments.reduction of the risk of recurrence of one form of
However it is not as simple as just a choice betweencancer. It sounds great and some oncologists were
something that is not proven to work and somethingtelling patients they would be 62% better off. This
that has been proven to work (statistically and62% of risk reduction was actually a 37%
selectively). In the case above the celebrity couldimprovement over no treatment, and as 22% would
have undergone chemotherapy but the researchhave had a recurrence, this is 37% of the 22% - this
showed that for one year of having horrendous sideis an 8% actual improvement - a long way from the
effects she would, on average, get another four62% the drug companies were promoting.
months of life.And when you looked at actual survival, as against
Statistically the drugs were shown to work. But in arecurrence, the figures were much worse again. It
practical and clinical sense the year of misery ofwas less than 1% (9 in 1000) or if averaged out over
chemotherapy treatment was not sufficient for theall the patients, an increase of four or five months.
patient to choose a possible few more months.We can't blame the drug companies - they are there
Of course she might have been the one person in 50to make profits, not as a public benefit and so, of
who got another five years. But on the other handcourse, they are going to make the best case for
she might have one of the many who found thetheir drug. The medical profession and the public need
chemotherapy experience so exhausting andto make it their business to know the games the
debilitating that she gave up hope and died early. Itpharmaceutical companies play with statistics. The
does happen and it happens frequently. We have toproblem isn't statistics, it's how they are used.
remember that the chemotherapy is intensely toxic -So, as chemotherapy across all cancers only
it is a poison that is not very selective and affectscontributes an average of just over 2% to the
every system of the body. A heavy load of toxins5-year survival rate of people with cancer we need
reduces the body's immune system and reduces theto be much more tolerant of those who turn to
body's natural ability to heal. So if the figures are soalternative cancer therapies.
bad, why do people believe otherwise?It is much more difficult to prove statistically that
I suggest that this situation is due to a number ofchanges in supplements, food, emotional support, or
factors. Most doctors are very caring. They want toexercise is what has made the difference because of
offer the best for their patients and many acceptissues surrounding research method and the way we
uncritically the "fact" that drugs are needed to helpdo the statistics. This fact privileges drugs and
patients get the best out of the life they have left.demeans the values of patient self care through
Chemotherapy has been statistically proven to givealternative cancer therapies. But don't let that stop
significant improvement. Natural cancer therapiesyou or those you care about from undertaking them.
have not.Alternative cancer therapies can certainly improve the
But please note that if a drug is statistically significantquality of life for the time a person has left and it
this does not necessarily mean that it is useful to themay be possible that enough changes might just
patient. Significant, in the research sense, just meansmake the difference and increase longevity.
that the effect is not due to chance. It does notReference: Morgan G, Ward R, Barton M. The
mean that the improvement or the cure rate is muchcontribution of cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year
better. It may be much better in terms of additionalsurvival in adult malignancies. Clinical Oncology
years to be lived, but it equally may mean that those2004;16:549-560.
who have the drugs might get a few additional