statistic on chemo....only helps 1/4 of us??

[sarah]

where did you read this stat?
I find it hard to believe or the insurance companies would be fighting everyone getting chemo.
was it talking about all cancers or just breast cancer?
can you post the post?
sarah

[Lani]

whatever the statistic, I think you are making the mistake of lumping all breast cancer together to come up with a number.

"Breast cancer " is many different diseases, with many different prognoses and each responding differently to any given treatment

Dr. Slamon has said that if herceptin had been tested in all"breast cancer" they would not have noted statistically significant improvement with its use and it would never have been approved. It is only becasue a test had been developed which enabled the researchers to find the group of bc patients in whom it proved effective (her2 testing, FISH better than IHC) that we discovered its remarkable effect and even so, it doesn't work for all her2+s and when given in Stage Ivs the majority recur within one to two years. By your reasoning, that a reason not to give it and that nihilisitic approach would keep them from discovering why it doesn't work on everyone and why recurrences occur and prevent researchers from discovering the best combination of treatments including herceptin and better "herceptins"

All are going to die of something someday, so why do we try to treat illnesses? To relieve pain and suffering and someday to beat them, I would propose.

Many more get treated now than treatments can help, but only in so doing and studying what makes each patients' results different will we discover the best treatment which is the most specific so everyone will have the greatest chance of being cured with the least chance of side-effects, overtreatment and undertreatment.

[AlaskaAngel]

It is difficult to get an honest answer to this question for a number of reasons. Most of the people who provide treatment are not in it "just for the money", but it is only human for them to hope the best and overemphasize the possible benefit of treatment when they have no way of knowing which patients will be helped by it, and know that "some" are helped by it.... and as they tend to see it (given that usually they aren't the ones to go through it, with all the expense and collateral damage from it) it "most patients can get through it anyway, so why not"?

None of us tend to want to actually be totally objective about this either. We all know that some percentage of us aren't going to survive for long, but we can't handle very well the awareness as individuals that the "someone" might be "me".

Not knowing scientifically which treatment will actually work for which patients makes it harder for medical providers to give hard figures to us. Some of us will survive against the odds with no definite reason as to why, and some won't, even with treatment that "should" have made a difference. So how can they discourage anyone from doing what treatments are available?

More patients are surviving longer now primarily because cancers are being caught earlier and earlier surgical treatment (as well as radiation and other medications) is keeping more cancers from metastasizing early on.

However, the closest percentage I was able to find in the various oncology discussions was that chemotherapy "helps" somewhere between 17 and 20% of the time, and as I understand it, that includes those who get some extension of time with the use of chemotherapy. The side effects also have to be considered, since they affect the 80% who don't benefit.

HER2's have had greater benefit from treatment due to trastuzumab. But providers still are not clearly and openly able to provide accurate numbers because the majority of HER2 patients (as with all breast cancer patients) are early stage due to earlier detection and earlier surgery/rads, and because trials did not provide clear information as to whether this majority needed treatment with anything more than surgery and trastuzumab.

A very difficult subject. See if you are able to get documented numbers for this question, and maybe together we can get an answer.

-AlaskaAngel