Surviving Terminal Cancer: Clinical Trials, Drug Cocktails, and Other Treatments Your Oncologist Won't Tell You About

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Overview

Describes how to use the Internet and other sources to learn about experimental drug trials, effective forms of alternative medicine, and other breakthroughs with the potential for dramatically improving the odds of successful treatment.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781577491163
Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing
Publication date: 7/1/2002
Pages: 256
Product dimensions: 6.14 (w) x 9.12 (h) x 0.72 (d)

	Introduction	1
I.	Round-Trip to Hades	5
Chapter 1	Diagnosis: Glioblastoma multiforme "The Terminator"	11
Chapter 2	Searching for Treatment	27
Chapter 3	Improving My Odds for Survival	45
Chapter 4	Salvaging a Life	63
Chapter 5	Toward a Rational Treatment Strategy	85
Chapter 6	Shared Experiences	95
II.	A System in Need of Reform	107
Chapter 7	Conventions of the Medical System and Their Ramifications	111
Chapter 8	Arbitrary Policies Exclude Promising Treatments	121
Chapter 9	Ethical Implications of the Clinical Trial System	135
Chapter 10	Phase-III Trials: Gold Standard or Fool's Gold?	145
Chapter 11	Bastille Day for Cancer Patients	161
III.	What Your Oncologist Won't Tell You	167
Chapter 12	Alternative Medicine	171
Chapter 13	The Value of Supplements	201
Chapter 14	The Cutting Edge of Cancer Treatment	233
Chapter 15	Sources of Information	257
	Index	261

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Anonymous

Posted July 31, 2002

Guerilla Warfare Against Cancer

A terminal cancer diagnosis is a shove through the looking glass into a terrifying alternate reality of imminent death, where medical science has no answers and clinical trials and alternative medicine offer fleeting glimpses of real or perceived hope. This is the experience of millions of people every year, who find they suddenly must trust doctors they have never met to make the best choices for them according to principals of science and the Hippocratic Oath. Seven years ago, Ben Williams heard perhaps the worst of all such diagnoses, Glioblastoma Multiforme. This fast-moving brain cancer carries a devastating prognosis where survival is measured in weeks and where approved treatments add only a few weeks more. In his battle with this ferocious disease, he left the established path to fight on his own terms, mixing conventional, experimental, and alternative medicine. His eventual recovery, and the lessons he learned, are the basis for this book. 'Surviving Terminal Cancer' is written in three sections. Section I is a narrative of the onset, diagnosis, treatment, and eventual remission of the author¿s own terminal disease. This section includes the bizarre initial symptoms of his brain tumor, and the emotional upheaval of the diagnosis and devastating prognosis. During the treatment course, Williams must struggle with a medical system that denies him obvious treatments; he confronts his doctors and travels to Mexico to obtain the drugs they refuse to prescribe. His treatment plan is a drug cocktail synthesized from his research into clinical trials and other published experimentation. A brain tumor proves intriguing subject matter, as fascinating as it is horrifying, and this creates a charged backdrop for this section¿s already interesting storyline. It is an MRI-to-MRI clinical suspense thriller, superimposed onto a very human drama of husband and wife coping with fear and mortality. Ultimately, Williams survives this Nietzschen transformation to complete the book. The resulting Section II delivers a scathing, if constructive, criticism of the American medical system and the FDA. Although well-meaning, this section may disturb many readers as it addresses the basic assumption of trust between doctor and patient. Williams pulls no punches, arguing against the statistical methods mandated by the FDA, the funding and motives behind drug trials, and even the present interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath. He turns the very notion of conservative, scientific medicine on its ear as fundamentally unscientific and irrational. With chapters like 'Bastille Day for Cancer Patients,' Williams handles this subject as brazenly his self-medicated treatment plan in Section I. The theme of a deeply broken system culminates with a call for cancer patients to fix it themselves through direct political action. Section III is a useful summary of alternative medicine, supplements, and clinical trials, and how to effectively research all such options for any particular disease. Although there are a few specific options listed, this section is not a definitive dictionary of treatments. Rather, it is a discussion on how to effectively investigate potential treatments both within and outside of traditional medicine. Through a few carefully picked examples, he illustrates how to find and identify useful information and separate it from advertising and political rhetoric. Despite the complexity of much of the subject matter, the style is a well-explained, easy to follow prose. Williams uses AIDS as a useful point of epidemiological reference, comparing cancer to HIV on both microbiological and socio-political levels. Perhaps welcoming the inevitable criticism, he carefully includes supporting references at the end of every chapter. Locating these supporting articles in many cases leads to very interesting, and applicable, secondary reading. Williams is even-handed in his treatment of the facts, carefully addressing several perilous topics that
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Surviving Terminal Cancer: Clinical Trials, Drug Cocktails, and Other Treatments Your Oncologist Won't Tell You About

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Guerilla Warfare Against Cancer