The Philosophy Of Orthodox Medicine In Prostate Cancer Treatment

I wrote on the life expectancy rate recently. Let’s look at the Orthodox medicine approach in the disease pathway. Orthodox medicine philosophy is centered on a three-pronged attack. In understanding this concept, let look at a case study of a man diagnosed with prostate cancer, which has metastasized or spread to other parts of the body.

The first thing the conventional doctor or clinician would do is to study the density or thickness of cancer cells in diverse areas of the patient’s body. Obviously, the density or thickness of the cancer cells in the prostate area would be much higher than in any other area of the body; because that is the genesis or where the cancer was diagnosed or found first.

So the first law of orthodox medicine is to cut out the parts of the body that have the heaviest level of cancer cells. This is called surgery. Thus, surgeons would cut out the sections of the body that have a dense level of cancer cells.

The second law of orthodox medicine is to dose it with chemotherapy to treat the less dense areas of cancer cells.

The third law of orthodox medicine is to irradiate it (i.e. radiotherapy) to complete the treatment plan. This might be to kill even more cancer cells and put the patient into remission or exile.

Before going any further, let me bring you attention to alternative treatments for prostate cancer. First, alternative treatments for cancer hardly, and I mean hardly, relies on surgery.

Notable case study: there were only three situations where Dr. Binzel, an M.D. laetrile doctor (which is one type of alternative treatment), advised surgery for his laetrile patients:

If the tumor, because of its size or position, is interfering with some vital function, you have to deal with the tumor by whatever means are best available.

If the tumor, because of its size or position, is causing pain, you have to deal with the tumor by whatever means are available.

If the presence of the tumor presents a psychological problem for the patient, have it removed.”

Doctor Binzel also said:
If the tumor is remote, not causing any problems, and the patient agrees, I leave the tumor alone.”

It is very important we understand his reasons for the statements. A tumor is a symptom of cancer, and normally does not disturb the life of a patient. It is rather the spreading of the cancer that causes life-threatening situations. Neither surgery, chemotherapy nor radiation stops the spreading of cancer. Only the immune system can stop the spreading of cancer.

It is interesting to note that none of his three reasons for surgery had anything to do with treating the cancer. All of the reasons were physical or mental, and had nothing to do with killing cancer cells. Obviously, however, if a person has a small benign skin cancer for instance, there is nothing wrong with cutting it off.

Well, if chemotherapy is as good as people say it is, then why is surgery necessary? In other words: “if chemotherapy is so good why isn't chemotherapy, instead of surgery, used on the very dense sectors of cancer cells?

Remission, Response, Markers, et al.
What exactly do conventional doctors measure? They measure things like “response,” meaning is there improvement in some criteria, such as a reduction in the size of a tumor. They measure such things as “remission,” meaning the absence of symptoms. They measure such things as “tumor markers,” which are a variety of measurement techniques to evaluate the cancer etc.

The Cancer tutor.com introduced a metaphoric language which I found interesting here. Let’s look at this case: Suppose there are 10 automobile manufacturers: Companies B1, B2, B3, B4 and B5 (the “B companies”), and also Companies G1, G2, G3, G4 and G5 (the “G” companies). Suppose the B companies make cars that start to break down after 50,000 miles, just after the warranty runs out (the “B” stands for Bad). Suppose that after 100,000 miles virtually all of the cars manufactured by the B companies have needed a new engine, a new transmission, and a new air conditioner, just to name three things their cars routinely need. In fact, these companies buy cheap parts and charge outrageous prices for their poorly built cars. They also use 80 year old metal technology to insure their customers have to buy new cars every 3 or 4 years.

Suppose also that the G companies make cars that last an average of 300,000 miles without any major repairs (the “G” stands for “Good”). They buy quality parts for their cars, build them extremely well, use the newest metal technologies, etc. in building their cars.

Suppose also the B companies are the much older, much larger and much richer companies. By virtue of their age and size, their advertising money is many times greater than the advertising money of the G companies. Since the media are always loyal to their advertisers, the media always does what the B companies want them to do and always say what the B companies want them to say. It's not that the B companies “tell” them what to say, that is not necessary. What happens is that if the media says something that makes the B companies angry, the B companies will withdraw their advertising money and give that money to a competing media company that follows the rules. Everyone knows the rules.

Suppose we define the “life” of a car to be the number of miles the original engine lasts. For the B companies the average “life” of their cars would be less than 100,000 miles. For the G companies the average “life” of their cars would be greater than 300,000 miles

Suppose we refuse to allow air conditioners to be replaced when they break and define the “quality of life” of a car to be the number of miles the original air conditioner lasts. Again, for the B companies the average “quality of life” of their cars would be much less than the “quality of life” for the cars of the G companies.

Suppose we define the “strength of movement” of a car to be the number of miles the original transmission lasts. Again, for the B companies the average “strength of movement” of their cars would be much less than the “strength of movement” for the cars of the G companies. If we built a chart comparing the cars of the B companies to the cars of the G companies, with these three statistics accurately reflected, no one in their right mind would buy a car built by a B company.

But remember that the B companies have the most money and the most clout with the media. So what can they do to get customers? They can do a lot of things that distract potential customers from the important statistics. But the most important thing they will do is suppress these statistics. Their goal is to divert people's attention from the statistics (which are suppressed) and get them to think of other things.

For example, in their advertisements they can talk about the “style” of their cars, the “popularity” of their cars or how “powerful” their engines are. They can advertise their cars using pretty women who look lonely, giving the impression that someone who buys one of their cars will be seduced by every pretty woman in town. They can talk about the options available on the car. They can do a lot of things to avoid talking about the three important statistics I just defined. They can sell a lot of cars by distracting their potential customers from the data (i.e. from the truth). It could be called “selling by deception.”

That is essentially what the medical community has done with orthodox medicine nomenclature. The most popular phrase heard in orthodox medicine is “remission.” Orthodox treatments “put people in remission.” That sounds really good. It sounds like everyone should get cancer so they can go into remission. However, according to research, the word “remission” can be equated to the pretty woman in the advertisement. It is a nice sounding word, and it attracts millions of customers, but it distracts these “customers” from the statistics that are important.

What Does “Remission” Really Mean?

First of all, the National Cancer Institute defines “remission” as: A decrease in or disappearance of signs and symptoms of cancer. In partial remission, some, but not all, signs and symptoms of cancer have disappeared. In complete remission, all signs and symptoms of cancer have disappeared, although cancer still may be in the body.”

What do you think this definition mean relative to the three “treatment decision criteria” mentioned above. The Patients are supposed to assume that “remission” means a person is cured of the cancer. But is that what the definition states? BIG NO! It states there is an absence of “signs and symptoms.” So is there a correlation between the absence of “signs and symptoms” and the three treatment decision criteria above?

Normally, what determines remission is centered on a reduction in the size of the tumor or in the change of some tumor marker. These things may indicate the number of cancer cells in the body, but they are very, very crude estimates of the number of cancer cells in the body. These numbers also do not measure the pain and suffering of the patient (i.e. the quality of life) or the status of the immune system, which is very, very important if all of the cancer cells have not been killed.

Chemotherapy and radiation shrink the size of tumors. They also kill cancer cells, lots of them. But in the process of doing these things there are theoretically dozens of side effects, such as: death, destruction of a major organ, intense pain, extreme sickness, etc. and the death of many, many normal cells. Chemotherapy does not separate between normal cells and cancerous cells, and since there are more normal cells than cancer cells, chemotherapy kills far more normal cells than cancerous cells.

So it is logical to think that the concept of “remission” tells us quantitatively what the “length of life since diagnosis” is? Let us break down the “length of life since diagnosis” into its pieces using the concept of remission:

Dr. Raphael NyarkoteyObu is a research Professor of Prostate Cancer and Holistic Medicine at Da Vinci College of Holistic Medicine, Larnaca city, Cyprus and President of Men's Health Foundation Ghana. You can reach him on 0541234556