Whilst both this paper and "Predicting and communicating prognosis in
palliative care" are well-meaning, they exhibit a major failing of the
medical profession on the core issue: enhancing cancer patients' survival
time, rather than the somewhat academic exercise of prediction based on
averages - a reverse focus.
You will have noted that both papers focus on clinical aspects of
prognosis. Neither address the issue of how patients can increase their
survival by attending to various aspects of their lifestyle. This latter
is now known to precisely have this effect. It is way past the time that
this was brought to the fore.
It is not enough to say to a patient "given your age, state of
health, cancer type & stage, etc, then we expect you to live x
weeks/months/years" without adding "however, if you increase your
exercise, reduce your overweight, optimise your Vit.D3 and EFA levels, eat
lots of fresh vegetables and fruit, cut out sugar, reduce alcohol, then
you can signficantly increase the odds of surviving much longer. Not only
this, if you check how you're doing every so often, you can tell if you
are on track."
If any of these 'howevers' were a new drug, their worth would be far
greater than many of those presently used. There is also the oddity of why
huge amounts of money is poured into clinical-based treatments and
virtually nothing into patient controlled lifestyle factors.
Clinicians may feel this is up to the patient or their GP. What is
certain is that most cancer patients are not aware of many of these
'howevers', and/or need motivating (by regular monitoring, at less cost
than most clinical treatments) to do this.
Attending to this would enable the UK to meet its target of saving
5,000 extra cancer patient lives in the next couple of years.
My own experience underlines my recommendations. The first several (3
face-face with me, the others via their case conferences) consultant
experts all said I only had weeks to months to live - 4 years ago. It has
only been my dogged search and immplementation of what I found out that I
have survived so far. No thanks to any of those earlier doctors, none of
whom told me of this research that enabled me to so extend my life.
Rapid Response:
Extending Survival Time in Cancer Patients
Whilst both this paper and "Predicting and communicating prognosis in
palliative care" are well-meaning, they exhibit a major failing of the
medical profession on the core issue: enhancing cancer patients' survival
time, rather than the somewhat academic exercise of prediction based on
averages - a reverse focus.
You will have noted that both papers focus on clinical aspects of
prognosis. Neither address the issue of how patients can increase their
survival by attending to various aspects of their lifestyle. This latter
is now known to precisely have this effect. It is way past the time that
this was brought to the fore.
It is not enough to say to a patient "given your age, state of
health, cancer type & stage, etc, then we expect you to live x
weeks/months/years" without adding "however, if you increase your
exercise, reduce your overweight, optimise your Vit.D3 and EFA levels, eat
lots of fresh vegetables and fruit, cut out sugar, reduce alcohol, then
you can signficantly increase the odds of surviving much longer. Not only
this, if you check how you're doing every so often, you can tell if you
are on track."
If any of these 'howevers' were a new drug, their worth would be far
greater than many of those presently used. There is also the oddity of why
huge amounts of money is poured into clinical-based treatments and
virtually nothing into patient controlled lifestyle factors.
Clinicians may feel this is up to the patient or their GP. What is
certain is that most cancer patients are not aware of many of these
'howevers', and/or need motivating (by regular monitoring, at less cost
than most clinical treatments) to do this.
Attending to this would enable the UK to meet its target of saving
5,000 extra cancer patient lives in the next couple of years.
My own experience underlines my recommendations. The first several (3
face-face with me, the others via their case conferences) consultant
experts all said I only had weeks to months to live - 4 years ago. It has
only been my dogged search and immplementation of what I found out that I
have survived so far. No thanks to any of those earlier doctors, none of
whom told me of this research that enabled me to so extend my life.
Yours sincerely, Ian
Competing interests: No competing interests