I'm relatively newly diagnosed Head and Neck with unknown
primary, stage 3, N2b, etc, etc. I did a thorough investigation of
survival
statistics because I needed to make plans for the future and
potentially for my
wife. I have worked very closely with three family members who have
died of
cancer, so I’ve seen a lot of this. Yes, stats are stats and each one
of us is
an individual, but my wife and I have limited funds, I'm a
self-employed
breadwinner and we need to have some realistic clue as to the future. I
think
that those who want to go forward with treatment based solely on doc's
advice
and pure optimism should do so. I'm a professional researcher. If you
want
references to studies from anything I’m about to say, just email me and
I will
provide them. I’m certainly not an expert and am just relaying what I
have
learned. I’m open to and would appreciate any new research that anyone
can
provide. My reality is as follows: Docs have told me that I need
radical neck
surgery, radiation and possibly chemo. That’s the standard treatment
for a
‘cure’. The medical definition of ‘cure’ seems to be being disease free
for 3
years. Docs will go forward with a therapy if it has a 5-10% chance of
being
effective. My chance of 3 year survival with radical neck dissection,
radiation
and possibly chemo is somewhere between 25% and 50% according to recent
studies
across several countries. There has been NO significant increase in
survival
statistics over the past 40 years. I’m at one of the top 50 cancer
hospitals in
the country, attached to a major university research facility. I have
found
that docs have been very much less than forthcoming with the truth
about the
efficacy of treatment or the side effects. When I ask them a question
at this
point, I ask them to give me references to studies that they are
quoting so I
can then go read them. I haven’t studied the other cancers, but I have
learned
that although chemo has been shown to have a positive ‘response’ rate
that
chemo does NOT increase survival rates at all. The definition of a
positive
response rate is that it will shrink a tumor by 50% for at least one
month. Again,
that has nothing to do with your survival. Almost all doctors make
money on
selling chemo agents and for signing up patients for clinical trials.
I’m not saying that that influences their
decision making, but it seems like a conflict of interest. I visited
one highly regarded oncologist and every nurse wore an "Ask me about
Clinical Trials" lapel button and there were signs to that effect on
virtually every surface. Secondly, there is
quite a bit of controversy about how extensive neck dissection should
be and
apparently some controversy over how effective it is. OK, so Chemo is
out unless someone can convince me with RESEARCH and radical neck
dissection is questionable in my mind. Possibly the most
optimistic thing that I have learned is that cancer cells can be killed
by
heating the cells to 106 degrees for one hour. You can read about it on
this
and other websites including medline and pubmed. Hyperthermia is
considered
‘investigational’ in the US,
but is commonly employed in all European countries. There are a number
of
clinical trials here in the US
using hyperthermia. When I asked my docs about it they said that
hyperthermia
was tried in the US
some years ago and was found to be ‘not effective’. They were referring
to
studies that were done wherein the ability to effectively heat the
tumor area
was impaired. Since that time many other studies have been done that
have shown
greater effectiveness and there is new equipment that is much more
effective at
focusing the heat. There are a number of treatment centers here in the
US that utilize
hyperthermia and they seem to range from outright quackery to highly
regarded
medical institutions. At this point, I have an appointment for radical
neck
dissection but am going to get a second opinion from Cancer Treatment
Centers
of America
at www.cancercenter.com. They are a
full-on center with radiation, chemo and surgery as well as
complementary and
alternative treatments. I’ll let you know what I think about them after
I get
back from my visit with them. Please send anything you have learned
from real research and I'll share with you what I know.