Re: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, RIP

In article <e8g0jb$eir$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
James Kahn <kahn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I'm no doctor, but I don't think it's so unusual to have cancer for six
years and then succumb. Doctors have gotten good at prolonging the
lives of people with ultimately terminal cancer. I suspect the
"five years = cured" convention is less meaningful now than it
ever was.

What I learned was there's no 'cure' ... the susceptibility
to wild cell-change, for reasons no one knows yet, remains.

I sometimes think it must be like herpes. Suddenly
rearing up after lying dormant.

Some of us are luckier than others for awhile.

There's also some controversy re overtreatment of
those with BC, starting in about '93, in the sudden
general tendency to give chemo to people whose lymph nodes
were taken and found to be free of cancer.

They decided to give chemo to all women with BC (if they
were able to convince women to do this, and it's easy
to do so when you're a doctor and the word given the
patient is that this will help prevent recurrence).
Problem is, they don't really know. Studies
are quite contradictory.

And even people like Dr. Susan Love, who headed the
UCLA Breast Cancer Center for years said that getting
chemo weakens the immune system, including resulting in
vulnerability to other cancers. She used it with caution
and definitely said women with lymph nodes not affected
and who are older than 40 (BC hitting those younger
is statistically more lethal) should get a 2nd opinion.

It's starting to swing back, I see, with a few I know
getting BC this year. Chemo is less easily given to people
whose lymph nodes are free of signs of cancer.

The old theory was that well, maybe microscopic
bits got through via the blood without showing up
in the lymph nodes and may be gathering on this or
that organ and will grow eventually. Let's zap them
now but what it definitely does is zap normal cells
as well (especially fast-growing ones) in very bad
ways, weakening the patient overall.

I do know that in an online support group I
attended, 4 patients with lymph nodes clear of signs
still got the chemo and were no longer with us after
only a couple of years. And the years they were alive
were spent almost wholly with tests and going back to
the center for renewed treatments.

So, they still know very little about this. And I'm
glad they're more sparing with the chemo in those
cases. If there is sign of spread in the lymph nodes
then there is no other known way of stopping the cancer
but with chemo ( except for alternative medicine, which
sees a lot of charlatans operating but which has proved
effective for a few).

- A

--
http://www.andrys.com



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