Chemotherapy

“ Despite the uniqueness of the cancer, the fact remained that I was a young woman with a dreaded disease. . . one that had supposedly been "cured" by the lengthy operation and chemotherapy treatment. I reflected how my oncologist (cancer specialist) had reassured the permanence of my cure by saying, "There is more of a chance of your being killed on your drive to the clinic than of having a recurrence of cancer." He was that sure.
I do not envy the doctors. Daily they encounter sickness and health, yet are limited in their ability to heal and assure their patients of continual well-being. ”

“ Since the inception of the National Cancer Program, we have learned much about the cause, detection, treatment and control of cancer. Today, cancer can often be detected earlier, making more effective treatment possible and saving many lives. Surgical, radiation and chemotherapy techniques have been improved, and research shows promise of adding immunotherapy as an additional method of treatment. Because prevention offers the best hope for ultimate control of cancer, cause and prevention research remains one of our highest priorities for we still have much to learn. ”

“ Surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy are making further inroads on cancer and immunotherapy shows bright promise of joining them as a means of treatment. Research findings on the disease are now reaching the prac­ticing physician faster than ever before. ”

“ Emphasis is placed here on the pharmacokinetics changes and adverse events reported in the literature of the various vitamin A forms and the chemotherapy drugs used in the treatment of lung cancer. Case reports were also reviewed however, no relevant information could be garnered on interactions and these did not enhance the results, and thus are not reported. ”

“ Holistic support will not only lessen the side effects of the medical treatments but will speed up healing and often reduce the required dose of prescribed drugs. I have had several clients with cancer who chose to have surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, but stayed on a raw food diet and took high doses of supplements throughout the treatment. ”

“ These phase I/II trials were conducted in patients with advanced stages of lung cancers, and in most cases, retinoids were used in conjunction with various chemotherapies including: docetaxel and capecitabine, cisplatin, etoposide, vindesine, mitomycin-C, carboplatin, gemcitabine, vinorelbine, 5-fluorouracil, interferon, and interleukin-2. Conversely, chemotherapy was rarely used in the trials showing no significant effects. None of the trials demonstrated disease exacerbation when vitamin A or retinoids were employed for treatment. ”

“ Early detection and education are critical to treating ovarian cancer. Today, only half of the women diagnosed with this disease are expected to survive 5 years or more. However, the 5-year survival rate for those whose cancer is detected early is more than 90 percent. When the disease is discovered in its early stages, doctors are able to treat it with standard methods, such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. ”

“ Whenever I think of surgery, my recollections always go to a man with cancer of the larynx. At that time the University of Alberta had the most respected surgeons and cancer specialists in the country. To treat cancer they invariably did surgery, plus radiation and chemotherapy to eradicate all traces of cancerous tissue in the body, but they seemed to forget there also was a human being residing in that very same cancerous body. This particularly unfortunate man came into our hospital as a whole human being, though sick with cancer. ”

“ It is perfectly acceptable to die while under conventional medical care. Happens all the time, in fact. But holistic alternatives are represented as stupidly risky, especially for serious conditions such as cancer. People with cancer see no choice but to do chemotherapy, radiation, and radical surgery because this is the current allopathic medical approach. On some level people may know that these remedies are highly dangerous but they have been told by their attending oncologist that violent therapies are their only hope of survival, however poor that may be. ”

“ So people started to come to Great Oaks School of Health to rest up from a demanding job, to drop some excess weight, and generally to eliminate the adverse effects of destructive living and eating habits. I also began to get cancer patients, ranging from those who had just been diagnosed and did not wish to go the AMA-approved medical route of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, to those with well-advanced cancer who had been sent home to die after receiving all of the above treatments and were now ready to give alternative therapies a try since they expected to die anyway. ”

“ From the Cancer Research Service of the General Memorial Hospital, New York.
[R] This critical discussion of the status of chemotherapy in tumors was prepared at the request of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American Medical Association.
267 Wassermann, Keysser and Wassermann: Deutsch. med. Wchnschr. 37:2389, 1911. Wassermann and Hansemann: Berl. klin. Wchnschr. 49:4, 1912.
268 Neuberg and Caspari: Deutsch. med. Wchnschr. 38:375, 1912. Neuberg, Caspari and Löhe: Berl. klin. Wchnschr. 49:1405, 1912.
269 Gers, Gaube du: La cuprase et le cancer, Paris, 1913.
270 Keysser: Wien. ”

“ It should be noted in passing that the envelop in which the Wolfgang Schmidt letter came has on its face a rubber-stamped impress to the effect: “Concerns Cancer Treatment.” The circular letter declares that by means of Antimeristem-Schmidt “either a cure or improvement has been effected in numerous inoperable cases” of malignant tumors. American physicians are asked “to employ the preparation when occasion arises” and are assured that “every medical man in city or country will be able to carry out treatment without preliminary knowledge.” ”

“ And here arises the difficulty of making exactly plain wherein lies the successful internal treatment of cancer; for unless just the proper care is given at the right time all may not go well. For this reason these patients should be seen at least once a week, and for months, and the exact state of the system learned by volumetric analyses of the urine and occasional studies of the blood, in addition to the ordinary watching of the pulse, tongue, sleep, mode of life, exercise, fresh air, absence of worry and nerve strain, diet, etc. ”

“ Removal of a large mass of cancer cells can also lighten the immune system's task. Not having to kill off and reabsorb all those cells one-by-one from a huge cancer mass, the body can better conquer smaller groups of cancer cells. And the die-off of large cancers produces a lot of toxins, burdening the organs of elimination. This is an argument for the potential benefit of a lumpectomy. However, I do not support mastectomies, or the type of surgery that cause massive damage to the body in a foolish attempt to remove every last cancer cell, as though the cells themselves were the disease. ”

“ Most careful and prolonged study of the patient in every respect has shown a certain uniformity in regard to particular deviations from health, the correction of which has been followed by a complete disappearance of tumors classed as malignant, so that the connection must seem obvious to an unprejudiced mind. And yet it cannot be claimed that the exact, single cause of the cancerous growth has been demonstrated, 262and from the nature and character of the systemic disorders found, it is evident that there can never be any single remedy which can be rightly claimed as a cure for cancer. ”

“ It may happen, therefore, that in treating a cancer patient over the long time necessary to effect a cure, the greatest number and variety of remedies may be employed from time to time, as intelligent observation and experience may indicate, to restore and hold the metabolism and nutrition in a perfectly normal state: the erroneous action of certain individual body cells which in the aggregate we call cancer, will then cease to exist, as is seen in cured cases. ”

“ There is, of course, no single medicine which can cure cancer, but proper medication plays a very important part in overcoming the disease and should never be neglected or interrupted in any case; indeed, one suffering from or threatened with cancer should be under the most careful medical guidance indefinitely, and this is especially true after the surgical removal of the tumor, or local manifestation of the morbid process, as Abernethy so strongly asserted, nearly a hundred years ago. ”

“ Not only are the subjective symptoms alleviated, but also the tumors appear to become cleaner and softer; the rate of growth is retarded; necrosis and metastasis are prevented, and inoperable tumors become operable. How are we to interpret these observations? How are we to explain the fact that they are the almost invariable accompaniment of the most diverse methods of treatment? I have already quoted the statement of Ledoux-Lebard that every therapeutic novelty appears to exercise a favorable effect on cancer cases. ”

“ So the treatment I recommend for cancer in general is the same as the one described for breast cancer cases. Restore the immune function.
However, as much as I lack respect for conventional medical cancer therapies, I do think surgery can have a useful place in cancer treatment along with hygienic methods. Some people just cannot confront the lump (s) . Or they are so terrified of having a cancer in their body that their emotions suppresses their own immune function. Even though surgery prompts a cancer to spread more rapidly, without their lumps some cancer patients feel more positive. ”

“ As it has been too much the case in medicine, to overlook causes, and attend to effects, so we are not to be surprised, if we find some physicians proposing to cure cancer, by remedies which shall decompose the matter which is yielded in that disease, or destroy the effect of the morbid action, whilst the action itself is overlooked144. From experiments made upon the hepatized ammonia, it was found, that the oxygenated muriatic acid was the best agent for decomposing it, and destroying its smell. This fluid was, therefore, highly recommended as an application for cancerous sores ”

“ For it must be acknowledged that the surgery of 148cancer is only an attempt at the physical removal of a something, which medical science and art should not have allowed to develop out of normal tissue. And in the matter of the general prophylaxis of cancer it is certainly worth while to consider and act strongly upon the facts which have been presented, especially in those individuals who have any hereditary suspicions, or who exhibit the habit of body or life which could lead to the development of cancer. ”

“ If the future offers any hope for the real cure or prevention of cancer, is it not in the way of careful and patiently conducted experiments with diet, drugs, etc.? Who is better fitted for the study of cancer as a disease than the dermatologist, who has devoted his attention to the study and management of the system as influenced by such constitutional conditions as gout, rheumatism and scrofula, and such poisons as malaria, leprosy and syphilis? ”

“ For example, we have formerly classed cancer as an organic disease and consequently incurable by mental means. The question is now asked, "Is cancer an organic disease, or is it some functional derangement of the epithelium tissue which causes it to grow indefinitely until it invades some vital organ?"
A further question arises due to further study. Some of the latest investigators claim that most if not all persons have cancer at some time in life, but that anti-toxin or some other remedy is supplied by the body itself, and the growth is stopped and the tissue absorbed. ”

“ I explained at the time that any attempt to excise portions of tissue for such study would at once endanger the patient and imperil the success of treatment, by giving occasion to metastases, from the opening of blood vessels and lymphatics. This matter is treated of more fully in the present lectures. It is to be remembered that the vast majority of operations for cancer are undertaken upon a purely clinical diagnosis, and it may be undeniably stated that not one half of them are confirmed subsequently by competent microscopic evidence, except, of course, in properly equipped hospitals. ”

“ Whatever treatment you're assigned to, you will also receive Best Supportive Care (BSC) which is defined as treatment given to maximize quality of life without the intention of stopping your cancer to grow.
The treatment you will receive will be determined by chance (like flipping a coin) . Neither you nor your doctor will be able to choose which treatment you will receive. You will have twice the likelihood of receiving pemetrexed than placebo. Once you are assigned to a treatment neither you nor the study doctor will know what medication you are receiving. ”

“ Treatment by medicines is of no avail in curing malignant growths. The reason why medicines are useless in such cases is evident if we look at the subject through the germ theory, for it can be readily understood that any drug which is powerful enough to destroy cancer microbes would also destroy the blood-corpuscles. It is safe to say, that we shall never have a drug which will cure cancer, in spite of the statements contained in the patent-medicine advertisements. ”

“ We have also seen that while there has not been demonstrated any very definite and specific change in the bio-chemistry of tumors, and no specific enzymes or poison secreted by cancer cells which can communicate 104the disease, there is evidence that the disordered cells secrete a something which deranges the blood and ultimately tends to end life; for the blood in advancing cancer undergoes very radical, degenerative changes, some of which improve decidedly when a cancerous mass is removed surgically, but return with the regrowth of the tumor. ”