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posted by martyb on Sunday July 22 2018, @10:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the best-to-use-what-works dept.

Alternative cancer therapies linked to reduced survival

Cancer patients who use alternative therapies may be more likely to shun conventional treatments and risk their chances of survival, research suggests.

A study of 1,290 patients in the US found people who received such therapies often refused life-saving care such as chemotherapy or surgery.

Fewer of them survived five years after starting treatment compared to those on standard care, researchers found.

Experts urged patients not to ditch proven cancer medicines.

Tell that to Steve Jobs.

Complementary Medicine, Refusal of Conventional Cancer Therapy, and Survival Among Patients With Curable Cancers (open, DOI: 10.1001/jamaoncol.2018.2487) (DX)


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 22 2018, @01:48PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday July 22 2018, @01:48PM (#710744)

    By the way, Minchin's rant is awesome, and I agree with 99% of what he says, and disagree with 90% of what he has Storm say (discrepancy mostly because he doesn't let Storm talk much), but - cherry picking some points of disagreement:

    Proponents of Science often do take their Science on what amounts to Faith, and when pressed on the point, much like practitioners of Faith they simply scream "SCIENCE!!!" louder rather than actually examining what they are asserting. Bad science doesn't go around labeling itself as such, but there is an awful lot of it out there that is little different from faith, and in until the majority of the public can discern bad science from good, Storm's point that science is little different from faith rings true for the majority which cannot.

    The final argument about "I get to live twice as long" is radically oversimplifying a complex assertion. In absolute terms, some people in the deep past also managed to live to 100+ years of age, statistically we're doing much better now, but the spread still runs from infant mortality through 100+ years. Another point is the extremely long lived people of today in places like Okinawa and the mountains [chicagotribune.com] or even faithful practitioners of the Mediterranean diet. It's not the pinnacles of modern science that's giving them their longer lives. It's not magic, either, but science is clearly still playing catch-up - what has been happening more or less naturally in those cases is still outperforming the best modern science has to offer the rest of the world in terms of longevity.

    Rather than post a third reply, I'll waffle back to the cancer treatment statistic for a moment and also throw in the dimension of quality of life - if there's a traditional treatment with a 60% survival rate but a really shitty quality of life for 2 years during treatment and followup (and perhaps even accelerated mortality for the losers), or an alternative with a 45% survival rate and minimal impact on quality of life during treatment, which would do you choose? (Assuming similar confidence intervals for both...) Steve Jobs is a popular target for his cancer treatment choices, but I believe he opted for the higher quality of life option first - lost the gamble, but it may have still been a very rational gamble to take.

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