Read it and Weep

Two years ago (as those of you who've been following this blog already knonw), I was told that the best conventional, "standard of care" treatment for me, with my diagnosis of Stage II, ER and PR positive breast cancer, should and would include chemotherapy. I was scheduled for a fairly standard "cocktail" of three different chemo drugs, one of which was Andriamycin (one of the "anthracyclines").

After weeks of agonizing fear, research, and deliberation (my "research" included a visit to the Block Medical Center in Chicago, talking to several doctors, communicating with several alternative practitioners and/or women who had chosen alternative treatment paths -- a small minority, btw, who I found via an email discussion list, which I found via annieappleseed.org and breastcancerchoices.org (see my lefthand sidebar for links) -- and frantically reading whatever I could get my hands on, most of which I found to be quite confusing and difficult to decipher/understand given my lack of any scientific or medical training) . . . I finally came to the disconcerting conclusion that I didn't think chemotherapy would be a good idea at all. Its benefits for MOST women with breast cancer, as far as I could figure out, were extremely minimal. When I weighed those questionable benefits against all the negatives of chemo (very serious negatives that I felt would adversely affect how long I ultimately had to live, AND at the same time would make me miserably ill, to the point that my quality of life would have been dramatically changed for the worse, on every  level - physical, emotional, and financial...I mean, how does one WORK to earn a living during all those weeks and months of chemo-induced misery?), I just couldn't accept the advice of the mainstream doctors. So I said no to chemo.

Today, TWO YEARS LATER, I read the latest article in Ralph Moss's newsletter. Here's how it begins:

ARE ANTHRACYCLINES ON THEIR WAY OUT?

One of North America's leading cancer researchers has delivered a major blow against a group of chemotherapy drugs that are widely used in the treatment of cancer. These drugs, known as anthracyclines, include epirubicin (Ellence, Pharmarubicin), idarubicin (Idamycin), and doxorubicin (Adriamycin).

Adriamycin is currently a mainstay of breast cancer chemotherapy. However, earlier this year, at a private forum held at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting, Dennis Slamon, MD, PhD, director of the Revlon/UCLA Women's Cancer Research Program of the University of California at Los Angeles, revealed that his research had shown anthracyclines to be effective only in a small minority of women with breast cancer. For perhaps 90 percent of women, these drugs have little or no benefit - and carry the risk of some potentially very serious adverse effects, including cardiac damage.

Slamon, whose research played a pivotal role in the development of the targeted anticancer drug Herceptin, presented dramatic new data on anthracyclines in mid-December 2007 at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Speaking at the conference, he remarked that continued use of anthracyclines on a "one-size-fits-all approach is just crazy and it's medically dangerous."

Click here to read the rest of this article.

Does this mean that my conclusion was brilliant? Not really. Honestly, I am not a medical or science whiz. Far from it. But if you REALLY make a reasonable effort to understand how to interpret the statistics (which can be very misleading and easily misconstrued), it's not THAT hard to see what I saw. What's hard is to BELIEVE it, when the majority of doctors are insisting that you must shut your brain down and just do what they tell you to do. No questions asked, no other options discussed.

I could not --and still cannot-- accept that.

Comments

[Ms.K]

Your title scared me! What a relief that it's good news, not bad. What great confirmation on going with your gut and being courageous.

[harlan lewps]

Yeah, me too. This is not read it and weep, this is read it and cheer for your good sense. Thank goodness.

[Me]

I think we should be weeping for all th e women who have gone through this for no good reason. I think we should weep for all the women who will CONTINUE to go through this for some time to come, because it will take a long long time to get the majority of oncologists to accept this new thinking. I weep for women who will continue to be given incorrect or incomplete information, and who will make their decisions based on this incorrect and incomplete information. I weep when I think of how the time and energy and money spent on these drugs could be put to better use, but I know that the drug companies will not want to stop making these "treatments" that are, for them, such lucrative money-makers. I weep because I'm afraid that new and better treatments aren't being developed for ME and thousands of other women who are waiting and hoping that we can hang on long enough to benefit from some future treatment breakthroughs that will be better than our patched-together alternative attempts to treat ourselves via unapproved alternative methods that our insurance companies refuse to pay for. Am I done weeping yet? Hardly. But it's time to go take my next round of pills. Are those pills really going to help me keep the progression of this disease at bay? I don't know. I wish there were more researchers out there other than the ones who work for the pharmaceutical industry, though. I wish there were more oncologists whose livelihood wasn't primarily dependent upon the dispensing of chemo drugs. Am I glad I didn't take andriamycin? Yes. But I'm still weeping.

[Ms.K]

Good response! Would make a good follow-up post methinks.