SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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)
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Alternative Therapies for Cancer Patients Reduce Survival Rates
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 22 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:43PM (3 children)
Rant on
My wife and I were flabbergasted by an old oncologist who proposed treatment schedule was the pinnacle of 1995. He scheduled chimio before surgery to reduce a small tumor that the oncologist surgeon told us he was able to operate and choosed chemo instead of hormo therapy when the cancer was 100% hormonopositive... Going back to the surgeon we were able to get another oncologist that confirmed that the correct treatment schedule was surgery, hormono, depending on the pathology result chemo and depending on the surgeon observation radiotherapy...
The old oncologist schedule was backward with regards to everything that was published after 2010. When were done with her breast cancer we will a formal complaint with the medical board... and maybe have her dossier analyzed by a medical lawyer.
Rant off
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 22 2018, @03:04PM (2 children)
Conservatism is the norm in oncology. That your oncologist was only 8 years out of date is probably better than average.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @01:46AM (1 child)
Thanks you just saved me some lawyer fee. But I am not sure if I should be reassured or worried by your statement!!
But we still will fill a formal complaint, with the board as this cost nothing but time fillings a lot of forms...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 23 2018, @01:20PM
Just because it is the norm does not mean that it is good, right, or even acceptable.
If you love the idea of suing your doctor, consult a lawyer or two there are probably some who would take the case, I doubt you'd find any to do this on contingency, but I'm not super-experienced in ambulance chasing and/or malpractice (I think there's a lot of overlap.)
DO complain to the board - it might even get them to kick their M.D.s and encourage them to do some real continuing education instead of just going to conferences and playing hole-in-one tournaments to win a new car: literally, I was at a conference with 50,000 MD's "in attendance," they had a talk by then Surgeon General C. Everett Coop - less than 100 MDs attended, more of them were out at the golf tee trying to sink a hole in one to win a Cadillac. The paper presentations and other continuing education events were similarly ultra-thinly attended, but I do believe many of those golf playing MDs managed to wrangle some CE credit for attending the conference.
Not all conferences are like that, I regularly attended another for several years with attendance in the 10-12,000 range, and that one at least had mobs of semi-interested docs and nurses at the paper presentations, and full auditoriums for the talks, even if they did also have (well attended) celebrity appearances by such luminaries as Loni Anderson.
🌻🌻 [google.com]