Absence of studies comparing chemo treatment survival vs non-treatment survival

[XPlus]

Xplus, that's just looking for something.. One could also argue that those, when enrolled in the study, in the enzyme groep were in better health initially.

These subjects I'd say fit a recent post in whereas someone stated:
"everyone becomes a so-called "expert" in nutrition and biochemistry/health".

That's exactly what I'm pointing out. Those studies are useless because, in some part, their criteria are vague.
Their results could be interpreted as it may please whoever uses them.

Now please, may I have your approval and the consensus of the scientific community to study and criticise medicine.

 

[Suikerbuik]

Sorry you took that personally wasn't meant to you in particular, anyway there's no need since you're already doing. Nothing wrong with that, but the only thing is that you apparantly had an answer on beforehand without actually looking into the study.

Happens all too often.. People having an opinion about a relative broad subject, viewing only from one specific pair of glasses. Or linking an abstract, which basically only proposes the opinion of the authors. I know science is so wrong most of the time, even scientists themselves know, but arguing from general assumptions or seeing things black and white isn't the answer. Don't take it personal, it isn't.

 

[burtlancast]

Burt, though you seem trying to make something clear, I don't get any of what you mean.. What is your view based on??

The cancer studies posted above are biased because those who receive the chemo and die early in the trial aren't counted because they aren't deemed to have received the full treatment to be evaluated by the study.

They aren't comparing survival, but rather different treatments between themselves, and using survival, or quality of life as a criteria.

Michael Farley is thus correct in his assertion.

These studies don't prove that the administered chemo treatment offers a longer survival than no treatment at all.

 

[Wilfrid]

Burt,

I think that, in France, a study on cancer ( treatment vs non treatment ) survival was made in 1843 by Dr Leroy d’Etiolles ( he collected as many statistics as possible from 174 practitioners who had treated cancer patients ). The reason for the study was to compare survival rates of those who elected to undergo the standard treatments for cancer against those who refused these treatments. Note that it was a long time ago, though. Anyway, I think that you may have access to Etiolles's works through the french library official website. (bnf and/or gallica.)
As for the other source, you may want to check through Dr Hardin B. Jones's works. However, I didn't find a way to put a hand on his work which was made in the late 60's. However, like for the former french doctor, keep in mind that his research ( and thus his conclusions ) was made 50 to 60 years ago.
Anyway, hope that help. :)

@Suikerbuik,

agreed. 100%.

 

[burtlancast]

Wilfrid,

The onus is on the cancer specialist who offers a toxic chemo drug to his patient to show it will extend his life.

He can't.

There are no studies.

 

[XPlus]

Simple observation shows that modern chemotherapy treatments are based upon very simplistic, rigid perception of the organism and the solution is to poison both the tumor and the host, that is to overkill both.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to compare this to an ancient engineer's attempt to fly: wear wings and jump off a cliff. Get all bones broken and think flying this way is possible at least for 2 seconds. Then, the next time they experiment with larger or different shapes of wings. When the fundamental idea is counterproductive, the repeated attempts of proving it or justifying it do not change expectations.

Suike
That wouldn't have been my answer if you haven't said that right after addressing my comments.
Nonetheless, no hard feelings.

I do have interests in the field but I obviously need a little more studying.
Until then, I hope you and your well informed friends take it easy on me.

I hope Mr. bert is okay with my unscientific rants.

 

[burtlancast]

It wouldn't be unreasonable to compare this to an ancient engineer's attempt to fly: wear wings and jump off a cliff. Get all bones broken and think flying this way is possible at least for 2 seconds. Then, the next time they experiment with larger or different shapes of wings. When the fundamental idea is counterproductive, the repeated attempts of proving it or justifying it do not change expectations.

I hope Mr. bert is okay with my unscientific rants.

As Ray explained, the way to disinform is to focus the attention on one beneficial aspect of the proposed treatment while ignoring it's dangerous aspects.

Yours in an excellent analogy and right in line with what Ray wrote. :2cents

 

[Suikerbuik]

Suike
That wouldn't have been my answer if you haven't said that right after addressing my comments.

I didn't feel like addressing your comments honestly. Especially the second one, I think, isn't adding any value to the subject. So I left it away, but luckily you seem to know what I was talking about.

I do have interests in the field but I obviously need a little more studying.
Until then, I hope you and your well informed friends take it easy on me.

I am just as simple as you are, you're fine.

Also oncologists share your vision about cancer and treatment if you talk to them in personal. The point is : Absence of studies comparing chemo treatment survival vs non-treatment survival.
I do think there are quite some studies showing that chemotherapy, although will ultimately lead to resistancy and death in almost all patients, does show increased overall survival vs. non-treatment.

Would I take chemotherapy myself? Highly depends on which tumor, size, location and molecular markers. I guess in most cases I would refuse and just enjoy life for what's worth it. Nor try Gerson, which I think isn't capable of providing a cure either, although tumors may regress initially.

At the moment I don't have time, but you might track back some studies and see how the statistical analysis was done. There's references in almost all studies - at least there should be.

 

[burtlancast]

Nor try Gerson, which I think isn't capable of providing a cure either, although tumors may regress initially.

You cast doubts regarding the Gerson therapy, yet show no concern about cancer study protocols systematically excluding early deaths .

Mmmm....

 

[Suikerbuik]

You are helped with my concern regarding this issue?
I cast doubt to both Gerson and conventional chemotherapy. Still, some drugs in some cancers do have better overal surival compared to non-treatment. Though at a price elaborated by Xplus already, but this was never point of discussion.

My concern is prevention - not point of discussion either, but this will be key in battling cancer, anyway as long as we're not taking our responsibilities cancer will bloom.

 

[burtlancast]

You are helped with my concern regarding this issue?

I wish i was.

Don't you think survival studies, where all deaths all comptabilized, are badly needed in order for cancer patients to make informed decisions ?

And don't you think systematically falsifying cancer death reports is tantamount to fraud ( in this case, bordering of intentional murder) ?

 

[Suikerbuik]

No doubt Burt.

 

[haidut]

The people in this thread my find this study interesting. While it does not directly compare the survival rate of the group taking or not taking chemotherapy, it showed that ONLY the chemotherapy-treated group had metastases appear within a 5-year period. The tumors of the "treated" people also evolved genetically and became resistant to the drugs. The non-chemotherapy group had NO metastases within a 5-year period. While it is not directly supported by this study, I'd venture a guess that people with metastases tend to die earlier than those without. I know it would depend on the tumor, but on average I think this is true.

viewtopic.php?f=243&t=8735

 

[burtlancast]

post 79427 Burt, though you seem trying to make something clear, I don't get any of what you mean.. What is your view based on?? (Note, I only read that enzyme based therapy). Anyway there's a survival plot in the article and as far as I can see they included all 55 patients that met the criteria.

The first 2 studies Scott posted compared chemo + radiation vs radiation only.

As i've said, the chemo group excluded all those in the study who died while receiving chemo, if they didn't survive long enough to receive what is considered "an effective chemo treatment" (whatever that term means).

Radiation only, by contrast, isn't as poisonous as chemo, so even the more debilitated ones managed to survive the radiation treatment and died later, when their death could be comptabilized against their group.

As far as the pancreatic study, it was done in relation to the work of Dr Gonzalez, who had managed to obtain in 1998, under an unknown miracle, a controlled trial by the NCI of his modified metabolic therapy.

Needless to say, it concluded it was worthless, even finding that patients having chemo enjoyed a better quality of life.

Gonzalez has been known to mix truths with falsehoods. His medical past is full of improbabilities; notably how allegedly Robert A. Good, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering, famous for having falsified his own rat experiences, encouraged him to investigate the Kelley protocol .

These guys don't get to be president without making compromises.

The fact Gonzalez inexplicably obtained a trial shows to me it was bound to fail, as to further discredit Gerson and Kelley.
This has been Big Pharma's modus operandi for the last century, and one only needs to watch the Burzynski documentaries to realize how far corruption goes and how despicable cancer specialists can be when it comes to medical trials, and how integrity, honesty and humanity gets thrown out of the window in those circumstances.

And i might add the Gerson Institute did publish a comparative study about melanoma, for which they have outstanding results; it showed their therapy to be superior, by far, in every stages, especially the terminal ones, to conventional therapy.

The 5-year survival rates reported here are considerably higher than those reported elsewhere. Stage IIIA/B males had exceptionally high survival rates compared with those reported by other centers.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9359807

 

[burtlancast]

The people in this thread my find this study interesting. While it does not directly compare the survival rate of the group taking or not taking chemotherapy, it showed that ONLY the chemotherapy-treated group had metastases appear within a 5-year period. The tumors of the "treated" people also evolved genetically and became resistant to the drugs. The non-chemotherapy group had NO metastases within a 5-year period. While it is not directly supported by this study, I'd venture a guess that people with metastases tend to die earlier than those without. I know it would depend on the tumor, but on average I think this is true.

viewtopic.php?f=243&t=8735

The bolded part is intriguing to me, as it's known surgery tends to spread metastazes.
It would be great if we had the complete article.

 

[haidut]

post 114448

The people in this thread my find this study interesting. While it does not directly compare the survival rate of the group taking or not taking chemotherapy, it showed that ONLY the chemotherapy-treated group had metastases appear within a 5-year period. The tumors of the "treated" people also evolved genetically and became resistant to the drugs. The non-chemotherapy group had NO metastases within a 5-year period. While it is not directly supported by this study, I'd venture a guess that people with metastases tend to die earlier than those without. I know it would depend on the tumor, but on average I think this is true.

viewtopic.php?f=243&t=8735

The bolded part is intriguing to me, as it's known surgery tends to spread metastazes.
It would be great if we had the complete article.

The articles are in Russian and quite long. I was able to get them from here by using Google search to find the author names mentioned in the article.
http://www.oncology.tomsk.ru/english/journal/

 

[burtlancast]

For those interested, here's a more in-depth report on Gerson's published retrospective melanoma study:


Gar Hildenbrand, of the Gerson Research Organization, and Shirley Cavin, from the University of California at San Diego’s Cancer Prevention and Control Program, compared five-year melanoma survival rates of Gerson therapy patients to rates found in comparable, conventionally treated groups. The study examined 153 cancer patients, 25-72 years old, in various stages of melanoma. Here is a summary of the results:


• Of patients with Stage I and II melanoma (localized), 100% of Gerson therapy patients survived for five years compared with 79% of patients receiving conventional treatment.


• Of patients with Stage IIIa melanoma (regionally metastasized), 82% of Gerson therapy patients were still alive at five years compared with 39% of the conventionally treated patients.


• Of patients with Stage IIIa and IIIb melanoma (regionally metastasized), 70% of Gerson therapy patients were still alive at five years compared with 41% of the conventionally treated patients.


• Of patients with Stage IVa melanoma (a classification proposed by the authors to cover distant metastases), 39% of Gerson therapy patients survived for five years compared with 6% of patients treated by conventional medicine.199




Even considering possible weaknesses in the study’s design, the substantial differences in survival between the Gerson therapy patients and conventionally treated patients is too great to be dismissed.