Cancer Treatment

Links to information on cancer treatment methods, specific anticancer drugs, and drug development and approval. Research updates, cancer treatment facilities, and other topics are also covered.

On this page:

• Treatment for Specific Cancers
• Drug Information
• Research Updates
• Treatment Methods
• Cancer Treatment Facilities
• Clinical Trials
• Care After Treatment

The Drawbacks of Traditional Cancer Treatment

In conventional cancer treatments, the body is bombarded with a large dose of toxicity – drugs and often radiation. This method harms the immune system, which makes it difficult to truly deliver a cancer cure. People struggle with the nausea and go bald from the toxicity of the drugs; this doesn’t improve the quality of life much either.

In 1986, the McGill Cancer Center scientists surveyed 118 oncologists who specialized in lung cancer. They were asked if they would take chemo if they developed lung cancer. Three-quarters replied they would not.

It has long been acknowledged that the type of radiation used in the 1960s and 1970s elevated women’s risk of subsequent cardiovascular disease. So many women were dying of the long-term adverse effects that it more or less counterbalanced any survival benefit from the treatment itself.

However, it is now said the newer forms of radiation minimize this sort of heart damage. To those of us who work with alternative medicine for cancer treatment, this did not ring true. Sure enough, a large and prolonged study by the Netherlands Cancer Institute showed that modern radiation also increases the risk of heart disease in women who receive it following surgery for breast cancer. Study results were published March 7, 2007, in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI).

The Politics of Treatment

Why is conventional chemotherapy still pushed by the vast majority of oncologists? In the book, Questioning Chemotherapy, Moss explained that traditional oncologists are in a very difficult position because they’ve been trained to give these drugs. And they’ve devoted many years to reaching a very high level of expertise in the knowledge of poisonous, deadly compounds. They want to help the cancer patient, yet the tools they’ve been given don’t work, he said.

From expert and author Cynthia Foster, MD:

“Cytotoxic chemotherapy kills cancer cells by way of a certain mechanism called “First Order Kinetics.” This simply means that the drug does not kill a constant number of cells, but a constant proportion of cells. So, for example, a certain drug will kill 1/2 of all the cancer cells, then 1/2 of what is left, and then 1/2 of that, and so on. So, we can see that not every cancer cell necessarily is going to be killed. This fact is well known by oncologists.

“Now, how can cancer patients possibly fight even a few cancer cells when their immune systems have been disabled and this is yet another stress on the body, and they’re bleeding because they have hardly any platelets left from the toxic effects of the chemotherapy? This is usually why, when chemotherapy is stopped, the cancer grows again and gets out of control.”