Recently, rumors about chemotherapy many years ago have reappeared on WeChat and Weibo. These rumors are both domestic [originating], There are also foreign [imported] websites, all of which come from alternative medicine without exception. These websites use the stereotypes and outdated ideas of ordinary people about chemotherapy, such as hair loss, vomiting, fatigue, fever, anemia, etc., to create a terror atmosphere about chemotherapy.
Supporters of alternative medicine screamed at the top of their voices to criticize chemotherapy drugs from poisons. It’s not a cure, It is to [poison] cancer patients. Further, it is believed that [chemotherapy has no effect at all], [chemotherapy is more likely to cause death of patients than non-chemotherapy]. More specifically, For example, [the answer given by the American Cancer Society and oncology and hematology of American universities is that even if the anti-cancer is successful after 5 years of treatment, cancer patients who do not receive any treatment may survive for more than 7 years]. Some cartoonists even compare chemotherapy to Nazi concentration camps and doctors’ use of chemotherapy to Nazi massacre of Jews.
[The theory of ineffective chemotherapy] is very alarmist. The real purpose of supporters of alternative medicine is to replace chemotherapy with non-mainstream therapies such as homeopathy, hunger therapy and traditional Chinese medicine to treat cancer patients. These therapies give people [natural] and [low toxicity] associations, which are more amorous and easier to understand and accept by patients.
First, is it not a cure, but a poison?
There is no denying that, Chemotherapy drugs do originate from poisons. Many people will think of nitrogen mustard, the earliest modern chemotherapy drug. In fact, arsenic trioxide predates nitrogen mustard. The folk name is arsenic. The following starts with the history of chemotherapy. 1. Arsenic trioxide Arsenic trioxide is used as a drug to get rid of [the theory of chemotherapy ineffectiveness]. 1. Arsenic trioxide is used as a drug, It has a history of more than 2400 years. Traditional medical associations use arsenic trioxide to treat hypertension, gastric ulcer or rheumatism. Dutch scientist Lewenhoek (1632-1723) improved the microscope and founded microbiology at the same time. People began to study human blood through microscopes. By chance, People who have taken arsenic trioxide, The number of white blood cells in the blood will be greatly reduced. In 1878, Boston City Hospital used arsenic trioxide for the first time to treat leukemia. A terrifying disease known as [blood cancer]. Doctors hope to use arsenic trioxide to eliminate a large number of pathological white blood cells, So as to cure leukemia. Due to the lack of reliable clinical evidence, These early attempts have not been popularized. What really made arsenic trioxide famous, Not for leukemia, But German scientist Paul Ehrlich used it to treat syphilis, trypanosomiasis, He won the Nobel Prize in 1910 for this. 2. Mustard gas has truly become the originator of modern chemotherapy drugs. This is what we often call mustard gas. At first, It is not a drug, But the deadly chemical weapons of the First World War. In July 1917, One foggy morning, British soldiers stationed in the Belgian town of Ypres, Sleepy, Saw rows of hail-like shells falling on their own positions. The landed shells did not explode, It produces a yellowish-green gas. The pungent smell is like burnt garlic. And brought tears to many soldiers, Cough incessantly, Skin blisters fester, Escaped everywhere. More than 2,000 soldiers were injured that day, Thousands of people died in one year. In 1919, American pathologists studied soldiers poisoned by mustard gas. Surprised to find that their bone marrow is like scorched earth, All healthy hematopoietic stem cells have disappeared and dried up. Their findings, It was not until World War II that attention was paid. Scientists injected mustard gas into mice and rabbits. As a result, the white blood cells in the blood of these animals almost completely disappeared, But there was no other toxic effect. In 1942, American Chest Doctor Gustav, Mustard gas was injected into a 48-year-old silversmith suffering from lymphoma. As a result, the glands filled with pathological white blood cells in the patient’s body miraculously shrank and softened. Since then, mustard gas, As well as nitrogen mustard compounds with similar structures, As an alkylating agent in a chemotherapeutic drug, It began to be rapidly popularized and applied all over the world. It seems that Instead of the poison in the eyes of medical supporters, It can also be used as an anti-cancer medicine. William Withering, an English naturalist who discovered digitalis, 1741-1799), He said such a sentence: [Small doses of poison can be a cure for sickness, Large doses of drugs can actually become life-threatening poisons.] 3. Chemotherapy drugs discovered after aminopterin, It has nothing to do with poison. A few months after Gustav published his nitrogen mustard anti-cancer paper in 1946, Simon Farber, a pathologist at Boston Children’s Hospital in the United States, Published a paper on the treatment of cancer with folic acid antagonist aminopterin. Folic acid antagonist, It is another kind of chemotherapy drugs-antimetabolic drugs. They can simulate the original compounds in the human body. And instead of binding these compounds to proteins, Thus blocking the function of the protein. Imagine the antimetabolic drug as a broken key, Then protein is the gate, After the broken key was inserted into the door, Can prevent the original key from inserting and opening the door. However, In the 1950s, The attitude towards chemotherapy was basically disappointing. Because chemotherapy drugs were still scarce at that time, It does not have a very good curative effect, A considerable number of patients, after the initial remission of the tumor, Soon it recurred. At that time, even a famous blood oncologist believed that No chemotherapy drug can cure tumors. Suspicion of chemotherapy by supporters of alternative medicine, In fact, it is similar to the mainstream medical community’s view on chemotherapy in the 1950s and 1960s. The difference is that, Science has been evolving, But doubts about chemotherapy have stagnated in the quagmire of anti-science, Cisplatin remained in the 1950s and 1960s. 4. Cisplatin lasted until the 1960s and 1970s. The situation changed completely. In 1965, When Barnett Rosenber studied the growth of bacteria in an electric field, It was found that the bacteria near the metal platinum electrode stopped dividing. After he withdrew from the electric field, the bacteria near the platinum electrode still did not divide. This shows that platinum, a metal, can inhibit the reproduction of bacteria. So scientists reason: bacteria and cancer cells are essentially cells. Since platinum can inhibit the division of bacteria, can it inhibit the division of cancer cells? In 1975, cisplatin, a chemotherapy drug from metal platinum, finally began to be used for cancer treatment, and chemotherapy also expanded from blood tumors to solid tumors. After that, alkylating agents, antimetabolic agents and platinum drugs were three pillars. Various new anti-cancer drugs appeared continuously. The combined use of different kinds of anti-cancer drugs greatly improved the therapeutic effect of cancer patients.
Second, does chemotherapy have no effect at all?
Is chemotherapy effective? I can give some data. After the advent of the new chemotherapy drug regimen MOMP in 1963, The complete remission rate of Hodgkin’s lymphoma increased from nearly 0% to 80%, 60% of patients with advanced Hodgkin’s lymphoma have complete remission, Even no more recurrence, This was completely unthinkable before chemotherapy was invented. MOMP regimens include cyclophosphamide, vincristine, methotrexate and prednisone. Since the 1970s, Forty years have passed, A considerable number of Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients are still alive. Thanks entirely to chemotherapy, Hodgkin’s lymphoma has gone from incurable diseases in the past, Becomes the first adult tumor cured by chemotherapy. Lawrence Einhorn designed a new chemotherapy scheme, Based on platinum drugs, The cure rate of metastatic testicular cancer increased from 10% to 60%. In 1981, Norman Nigro invented a chemotherapy protocol named after him. This makes the anal canal cancer patients who originally need to have their anus removed, Saved the anus, Avoid the embarrassment of defecating through the colostomy on the belly for a lifetime. In 2011, After scientists counted 123 randomized controlled trials and 100,000 women, It is concluded that: For breast cancer patients, Chemotherapy can reduce the 10-year mortality rate by an average of one third compared with non-chemotherapy. The study is published in the famous medical journal Lancet. For different patients, There are also websites that can obtain statistical data. For example, 50-year-old breast cancer patients have a general basic situation. The tumor grade is Grade 2 and the size is 2.1-3.0 cm. After surgery + chemotherapy, their 10-year survival rate can be improved by 8.8% compared with patients undergoing surgery alone.
No organization regards survival for 5 years after cancer treatment as [curing] cancer, and chemotherapy will not only improve the survival time of patients for 5 years! The evidence proving the effectiveness of chemotherapy is like the sea, while the information denying chemotherapy is not even a drop of sea water in the sea.
Third, is chemotherapy more likely to lead to death than non-chemotherapy?
According to statistics from the American Cancer Society in 2013, As a result of improve diagnostic techniques, This led to a slight increase in the incidence of cancer between 2005 and 2009 (0.6% per year for men, Women remain basically the same), However, the death rate from cancer has decreased year by year (1.8% per year for men, Women fell by 1.5% every year). Some people even counted the incidence and mortality of cancer from 1975 to 2009. Scientists Found: 1. The incidence of cancer is gradually increasing, And even peaked in the early 1990s, This is related to lung cancer caused by smoking. Smoking was very popular before the 1960s. After that, he began to quit smoking. However, the occurrence of cancer is often delayed by 25-30 years, So the incidence peaked in the early 1990s. 2. Even if the incidence of cancer gradually increases, There were also peaks, However, the overall cancer mortality rate is slowly decreasing. There was no significant increase at the peak of the disease. After 2000, the decline in mortality rate accelerated. The increase in cancer incidence rate has nothing to do with treatment measures, and the decrease in cancer mortality rate just shows the effectiveness of modern medical treatment measures, of which chemotherapy has contributed a lot. The so-called “chemotherapy kills faster than no chemotherapy” is pure rumor.
It should be noted that, Cancer depends on the type, location, There are hundreds of them, Each cancer has a different chemotherapy plan, Overall, there are thousands of chemotherapy schemes. The therapeutic effect of each cancer is different. The advantages and disadvantages of chemotherapy cannot be evaluated in large scale. Although there are still some cancers, such as pancreatic cancer, which are still very difficult to treat and the therapeutic effect is not good to this day. However, quite a number of cancers have been well controlled and even some have achieved curative effect.
IV. Summary
In short, the [theory of ineffective chemotherapy] does not hold water. When spreading some alarmist and unconventional views on the Internet, we need to pay more attention, consult experts in professional fields, and believe in the ability of modern medicine to prevent being cheated and victimized.
Author: Ding Chao