Medicine thrives on the concept of evidence based medicine. All our training of medical students encourages them to expect to practice using the best evidence available. And there will be few people out there who would argue that we would want to have a good reason to use expensive treatments - we want to know they will work.
So often in the media there are comments from the medical profession about the gullibility of people using natural cancer therapies, or any natural therapies for any serious condition as they haven't been proven to work to the same standards as the pharmaceutical drugs and other medical treatments.
However at this point we need to be very careful. In 1991 an article in the British Medical Journal stated that only about 15% of the treatments in use were proven to the standards that they expect of natural cancer therapies and other holistic and alternative treatments. And there is evidence to suggest we have not improved the percentages since then.
As a case in point surgery as a treatment for cancer has not been proven to lengthen the life of patients. Organizations such as the various countries' cancer societies claim that life expectancy is improving where surgery is the main form of treatment, but there is just no evidence in the medical literature to support that claim.
The reason this is the case is that surgery has been the first mode of treatment for decades. It was "believed" to work. And because it was believed to work it was considered unethical to do a randomized controlled trial where half of the patients wouldn't be treated. It would also have been difficult for the doctors to admit that they had been using an unproven method for the last century or so.
So where does that leave us? For a start we need to admit that there are a small group of patients who do need surgery to remove a growth that is pressing on vital organs and preventing ordinary functions. These people are likely to gain improved comfort and their lives may be extended for a short period of time. But that is as far as we can say with certainty.
Scientists have undertaken other modeling of the cancer figures to endeavor to find out if they could deduce whether surgery improves longevity and despite using several methods they were not able to show that surgery has a positive impact.
So how can the various cancer societies around the world say that surgery is useful? They use figures looking at the improvement in the percentage survival rates across the decades. Two explanations have been used by researchers as to why these figures show an improvement: one relating to changes in the criteria for diagnoses over the time frame being considered and the other to do with the more aggressive treatments being used. The scientific paper by Benjamin, referenced below, suggests that these survival figures can be explained in other ways and are therefore unreliable as a measure of the success of surgery as a treatment for cancer.
Beliefs on causality are very emotionally held, even by the medical profession. Both medical professionals and the public usually assume that medical treatment is based on good scientific evidence when this is just not the case. Medicine has always been based on collegial agreement as to what constitutes best care under the circumstances and this has changed according to fads, fashions and financial and social incentives. Scientific findings which are contrary to these get short shrift until such time as the fads, fashions and incentives change.
Those with cancer may still choose to use both surgery and, or, chemotherapy but they need to know that any healing that occurs is more likely to be due to your own body's ability to self heal than to the treatment that your doctor recommends. As the scientific literature shows that chemotherapy has less than a 2% contribution to the 5 year survival rates and as there is no evidence surgery prolongs life we can be reassured that the very large numbers of recoveries are due to the patients' own improved immune function.
As a result patients are well advised to seek out natural cancer therapies which support them psychologically, socially, spiritually and physically. I suggest that you do not look for that one magic herb, pill or potion to replace the doctor's surgery and chemo. If you are going to go natural remember that natural healing covers ALL aspects of self care. Think of the cancer as being a systemic problem and that you need to improve every system of your body so that you become healthier overall.
Benjamin DJ. The efficacy of surgical treatment of cancer. Medical Hyotheses, 1993;40:129-138. Morgan G, Ward R, Barton M. The contribution of cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adult malignancies. Clinical Oncology 2004;16:549-560. Smith R. Where is the wisdom...? The poverty of medical evidence. British Medical Journal 1991;303:798-799.
Author Resource:-
Dr Harriet Denz-Penhey is an internationally recognized health researcher who has done groundbreaking research into patient self care in serious illness. The web site http://www.cancerremedies.org discusses aspects of natural cancer treatment and remedies for good general health.
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