Researchers: chemo is effective only 2% of the time

[Guest guest]

Researchers say chemo is effective only 2% of the time.

-----

[Article]

An important paper has been published in the journal, Clinical Oncology. This

meta-analysis, entitled " The Contribution of Cytotoxic Chemotherapy to 5-year

Survival in Adult Malignancies " set out to accurately quantify and assess the

actual benefit conferred by chemotherapy in the treatment of adults with the

commonest types of cancer. Although the paper has attracted some attention in

Australia, the native country of the paper's authors, it has been greeted with

complete silence on this side of the world.

All three of the paper's authors are oncologists. Lead author Associate

Professor Graeme is a radiation oncologist at Royal North Shore Hospital

in Sydney; Professor Robyn Ward is a medical oncologist at University of New

South Wales/St. 's Hospital. The third author, Dr. Barton, is a

radiation oncologist and a member of the Collaboration for Cancer Outcomes

Research and Evaluation, Liverpool Health Service, Sydney. Prof. Ward is also a

member of the Therapeutic Goods Authority of the Australian Federal Department

of Health and Aging, the official body that advises the Australian government on

the suitability and efficacy of drugs to be listed on the national

Pharmaceutical Benefits Schedule (PBS) – roughly the equivalent of the US Food

and Drug Administration.

Their meticulous study was based on an analysis of the results of all the

randomized, controlled clinical trials (RCTs) performed in Australia and the US

that reported a statistically significant increase in 5-year survival due to the

use of chemotherapy in adult malignancies. Survival data were drawn from the

Australian cancer registries and the US National Cancer Institute's Surveillance

Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) registry spanning the period January 1990

until January 2004.

Wherever data were uncertain, the authors deliberately erred on the side of

over-estimating the benefit of chemotherapy. Even so, the study concluded that

overall, chemotherapy contributes just over 2 percent to improved survival in

cancer patients.

Yet despite the mounting evidence of chemotherapy's lack of effectiveness in

prolonging survival, oncologists continue to present chemotherapy as a rational

and promising approach to cancer treatment.

" Some practitioners still remain optimistic that cytotoxic chemotherapy will

significantly improve cancer survival, " the authors wrote in their introduction.

" However, despite the use of new and expensive single and combination drugs to

improve response rates...there has been little impact from the use of newer

regimens " ( 2005).

The Australian authors continued: " ...in lung cancer, the median survival has

increased by only 2 months [during the past 20 years, ed.] and an overall

survival benefit of less than 5 percent has been achieved in the adjuvant

treatment of breast, colon and head and neck cancers. "

[For more, use this link]

www.curenaturalicancro.com/oncologists-criticize-chemotherapy.html