Treatment

Cancer overdiagnosis and overtreatment

Caveat: misdiagnoses and false positives abound — do be aware!

All surgeons who perform autopsies and dissections have stated that in many cadavers, one finds callused, encapsulated "cancer vestiges", i.e. remains of tumors the body has broken down and rendered harmless. What greatly astonishes doctors who experience a patient's spontaneous remission, animal and human organisms quietly accomplish by their millions.
Prof. Dr. Dr. Gyula de Szilvay, physician, cancer researcher, author, translated by Healing Cancer Naturally

Have you or a loved one received a cancer diagnosis and are understandably but possibly unfoundedly frightened out of your mind?

Before starting to read the numerous cancer healing testimonials provided on this site, the reader’s attention is drawn to the following important observations re cancer overdiagnosis and overtreatment made by Dr. Tim O'Shea:

“Most cancers are not found until autopsy... they never caused any symptoms... 30–40 times as many cases of thyroid, pancreatic, and prostate cancer are found in autopsy than ever presented to the doctor. [As]... cited in top British medical journal Lancet 13 February 1993, early screening often leads to unnecessary treatment: 33% of autopsies show prostate cancer but only 1% die from it.

After age 75, half of males may have prostate cancer, but only 2% die from it... the immune system can hold many problems in check, as long as it is not compromised by powerful procedures. ... A 1992 study... of 223 patients concluded that no treatment at all for prostate cancer actually was better than any standard chemotherapy, radiation or surgical procedure.”

In fact, French oncologist Lucien Israël jokingly reassured patients diagnosed with prostate cancer that they shouldn't worry since "you have a better chance of dying of a flower pot falling on your head on a stormy day than from your illness!"

Compare for instance the 2015 studies "Latent prostate cancer in Japanese men who die unnatural deaths" and "Prevalence of incidental prostate cancer: A systematic review of autopsy studies".

New studies on overdiagnosis of cancer: example breast tumors — over a million misdiagnoses?

A study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine in November 2012 titled "Effect of Three Decades of Screening Mammography on Breast-Cancer Incidence"^[1] aimed to evaluate the benefits of a reduction in mortality vs the damage of overdiagnosis and consequent overtreatment resulting from breast cancer screenings. The study suggests that mammography has caused considerably more damage to women than actual benefits.

In fact, study authors Archie Bleyer, M.D., and H. Gilbert Welch, M.D., M.P.H., arrived at the estimate that more than 1.3 million U.S. women alone were overdiagnosed with breast cancer in the last thirty years. In the words of Drs. Bleyer and Welch:

"...tumors were detected on screening that would never have led to clinical symptoms" and "[w]e estimated that in 2008, breast cancer was overdiagnosed in more than 70,000 women; this accounted for 31% of all breast cancers diagnosed."

The main type of breast cancer detected by screening mammography is ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a non-invasive breast cancer which typically is symptom-less and if left undisturbed by treatment will (normally) not progress. In other words, without mammography screening many/most of the women found to have DCIS would be totally unaware of the fact.^[2]

In November 2011, the journal Lancet Oncology published a cohort study under the title "Natural history of breast cancers detected in the Swedish mammography screening programme"^[3] which arrived at the "interpretation" that

"... we believe that many invasive breast cancers detected by repeated mammography screening [i.e. those that were clinically confirmed] do not persist to be detected by screening at the end of 6 years, suggesting that the natural course of many of the screen-detected invasive breast cancers is to spontaneously regress."

In other words, even a great number of untreated invasive breast tumors seem to spontaneously regress by themselves given some time, suggesting that so-called 'abnormal breast findings' supposedly calling for immediate (and aggressive) treatment may simply represent temporary benign variations that the body is well able to rectify on its own steam.

Of course, any cancer misdiagnosis has not only entailed extreme stress for the person concerned, but also subsequent "recommended" treatment with highly toxic chemotherapy and in the case of breast cancer, mutilation (likely loss of the breast) and possibly the spectre of lymphedema on the horizon.

PSA tests lead to massive overdiagnosis of cancer

See details under PSA tests, biopsies & prostate cancer.

Even medical drugs can cause a false positive cancer diagnosis

In 2010, researchers form the US-American St Louis University Hospital discovered that diabetics taking medication to lower their blood-sugar levels could be erroneously diagnosed with cancer. The reason: drugs of this type will affect the results of cancer tests such as PET scans (reported at the 57th annual meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine).

“Should I Be Tested for Cancer?”: an important insider look at cancer overdiagnosis

More confirmation of the above warnings comes from a professor of medicine, researcher and accomplished author of articles published in prestigious medical journals (as well as co-author of the above-mentioned New England Journal of Medicine study): Dr. H. Gilbert Welch devoted an entire book titled “Should I Be Tested for Cancer? Maybe Not and Here's Why” to this important subject where he discusses in detail the risks vs. benefits of cancer screening in healthy [asymptomatic] people.

Cancer overdiagnosis: a real-life story

A very poignant example of what this type of “overdiagnosing” can lead to in a case of “breast cancer” is furnished by L. P. whose report details the shock, trauma & disfigurement she experienced after a mammogram revealed a tiny anomaly in her left breast.

Clearly, in her case (as I feel in many cases of official cancer diagnosis) doing “nothing” but upgrading one’s diet (which is actually frequently of central importance, not just re cancer but for overall physical and mental health recovery and/or maintenance), applying powerful natural remedies (eg this aloe/honey formula) and generally improving and detoxing one’s life and lifestyle on all levels (emotional, spiritual, environmental etc.) would have been immeasurably more beneficent, and would have offered the chance of achieving true healing, i.e. healing at the causative level.

Celiac disease misdiagnosed as leukemia?

Coeliac disease (CD) is a serious allergy to gluten which is found in wheat and a number of other grains as well as hidden in many manufactured foods including such unlikely items as beer, soy sauce, ice cream, ketchup, and even vitamins where it can serve as a cheap filler or stabilizer.

According to Elaine Hollingworth's book "Take Control of Your Health and Escape the Sickness Industry", individuals with a severe intolerance to gluten may have elevated white blood cell counts and be misdiagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). According to the same source, when the diagnosed ‘leukaemia’ is indeed merely an allergic reaction to gluten, simply cutting out all gluten-containing foods (as well as dairy products since they also can induce white blood cell proliferation) can result in a reversal of all "leukaemia" symptoms.

Everyone "has" some cancer cells

Indeed, one thing often forgotten is that everyone apparently "has" cancer, i.e. there are some maverick cells created all the time in most/all people’s body. These are officially diagnosed and labelled as cancer of course only after reaching a certain mass and when people have themselves "checked" (either because they are admonished to do so as the responsible thing to do via various "public health" announcements or because they observe symptoms of ill health in themselves).

But sometimes (or frequently?) it seems what eventually kills people is not the cancer but rather the combined effect of the diagnosis (felt like a death sentence with the corresponding trauma and fear of dying, both negative emotional states which suppress the immune system) and the treatment they allow themselves to receive (invasive surgery/biopsies/lumpectomy leading to spreading plus toxic chemotherapy, radiation and hormone-suppressive treatments, all of which possibly [in fact, highly likely] entail serious side effects and adverse repercussions on health).

Conclusion

Not every cancer diagnosis is as serious or life-threatening as it is made out to be by what can only be called vested medical interests looking for clients (compare On cancer business).

Related information

On mammograms & mammography (quotes showing lack of reliability and side effects such as increased breast cancer incidence due to mammograms)
Ionizing radiation (fluoroscopy/mammography/medical X-rays) proven causes of breast cancer
On cancer diagnosing (quotes)
The power of belief (examples showing the powerful placebo/nocebo effect both a negative and an encouraging diagnosis/prognosis can have on outcome)
Creating & handling fear when dealing with cancer: on mind power & avoiding negative versus nurturing positive influences
Lothar Hirneise on the (potentially) positive role of tumours
After a cancer diagnosis & before choosing any conventional treatment — chemo, radiation, surgery — ask your oncologist two basic questions

... and for the best, easiest, and least expensive ways I know to heal cancer

after studying the subject for some twenty years, click here.

Diese Seite auf Deutsch

Footnotes

1 New England Journal of Medicine. Effect of Three Decades of Screening Mammography on Breast-Cancer Incidence by Archie Bleyer, M.D., and H. Gilbert Welch, M.D., M.P.H.

2 To read an example of how this apparently benign test result can be abused by the "cancer industry", see My experience with TRAM flap mastectomy & biopsies after DCIS diagnosis. Also see the related story of how another woman was possibly traumatised for life under Rushed into conventional breast cancer diagnostics & therapy A woman's tale — and a warning to all cancer patients.

3 Lancet Oncol. 2011 Nov 12(12):1118-24. Natural history of breast cancers detected in the Swedish mammography screening programme: a cohort study by Per-Henrik Zahl, Peter C Gøtzsche and Jan Mæhlen.