In a bizarre piece of research conducted by Cancer Research UK and Public Health England, results show that whether you have surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy is determined by your cancer stage.
And if people are diagnosed ‘sooner rather than later’, they are 5 times more likely to only require surgery to ‘cure’ them.
Across 2013-2014 about half a million patient’s records across 22 different cancers were examined to come up with this earth shattering news.
While 7 patients in 10 (70%) diagnosed at the earliest stage had surgery to remove their tumour, the figure falls to just 13% for those diagnosed at the latest stage (stage 4).
Only 12 per cent of patients at stage 1 need chemo.
Chris Woollams, former Oxford University biochemist and founder of CANCERactive said, “As Basil Fawlty once said of Sybil – ‘it’s like stating the bleeding obvious’. Here are these two health bodies who are trying to take the fear out of cancer treatment so they want to tell you, that if you’re diagnosed early, you are less likely to need that poisonous chemotherapy stuff, that rarely works anyway.
Of course you may only need surgery if you have a small lump or bump! However, tell that to women who develop breast cancer in the UK. Even after a lumpectomy, many are told they need 3-4 drugs and radiotherapy.
And if it has spread, the oncologist will see no point in wasting limited funds on removing the primary. Instead they will play chase the cancer. If it’s goes to your liver – we have drugs for that. If it’s gone to the bones – we can give you radiotherapy for that. If it is in the brain now – well, maybe it’s back to surgery.
There was also a huge flaw in the research. It was only across one year. So the people who only had surgery – were they really cured, or is the cancer going to come back in 5 years because they had cancer cells in other parts of their body? And what treatment would they require then? Doubtless it will actually be chemo and/or radiotherapy. So these patients haven’t avoided it; they’ve just postponed it.
Sometimes, I despair. Instead of doing this meaningless bit of research, why not spend the money on some sensible cancer prevention TV advertising. That would help more people far more.”