The post appended below propagates dangerous myths and misinformation regarding cancer treatment in this public forum.
Here is a link to an article from the Mayo Clinic, debunking the myth that tumor spreads when it is exposed to air, and the misinformation that some experiment in mice showed that this mythical observation was accurate: http://www.mayoclinic.com/print/cancer/HO00033 Here is the pertinent quote from that article entitled, "Debunking cancer myths: An interview with a Mayo Clinic specialist", and with the subtitle, "Medical myths not only mislead but also may hamper proper treatment. Find out why these common cancer myths are wrong": "Exposing a tumor to air during surgery causes cancer to spread. Surgery is one of medicine's main weapons against cancer. It can't cause cancer or cause it to spread. Because you may feel worse during your recovery than you did before surgery, you might believe your surgery caused your cancer to spread. However, "air hitting the tumor" doesn't cause cancer to spread. In some animal studies, removing the main tumor mass sometimes temporarily facilitates growth of cancer that has already spread (metastasized), but this hasn't been seen conclusively in humans. Some tumors will grow to a certain size and become relatively dormant. This occurs if the tumors secrete a substance called endostatin, which suppresses tumor growth in both the primary tumor as well as in distant sites. Unfortunately all tumors, no matter what their size, secrete angiostatin, which promotes tumor growth particularly the growth of new blood vessels that supply oxygen and nutrients to the tumor. Therefore, if you have a large primary tumor and only microscopic metastases, the endostatin produced by the large tumor may prevent the metastases from growing. But if you remove the tumor, you remove the source of growth-inhibiting endostatin, and the metastases, which produce angiostatin, may continue to grow. Although it's possible that during surgery your doctor may find the cancer more widespread than previously thought, an operation can't cause cancer to spread nor can it cause cancer to start. Don't delay or refuse treatment because of this myth. Surgically removing cancer is often the first and most important treatment." Cheers, Santosh --- Gilbert Lawrence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Many may have heared in Goa, and in fact all over > the world, the belief that when you operate on > cancer, (open the patient), it makes the cancer > spread and the outcome worse. The explanation was, > if / when air gets to the cancer, the tumor became > aggressive. So this is believed to be a Goan > Kaneo. > > A few years ago, an experiment was undertaken where > a batch of mice were injected with an identical > quantity (volume) of aggressive cancer cells. As > expected the mice developed multiple tumors > (metastasis) in the lung. Half the mice were then > operated to remove tumors from just one lung. The > other half of the batch of mice did not undergo any > surgery. The mice were then followed. The mice > with their tumor (partly) removed died much earlier > than the group where the tumors in both lungs were > allowed to grow uninterrupted. Thus the > grandmother's observation was accurate. > _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
