What’s in a name? Plenty… if it’s ‘cancer’

Once you get a cancer diagnosis, it’s hard to go back to the way things were before.

But what if not all so-called “cancers” were given that “Big C” label? What if certain low-risk tumors — say, ones that really don’t put your life in danger, like breast, prostate, or thyroid — were called something else?

Would it make a difference?

Well, if you were the patient in question, a change like that would certainly lower your anxiety about the diagnosis.

But that’s not all.

The “cancer” label is practically a speed pass for the overtreatment of insignificant tumors that are going nowhere. No matter what size or type of growth they are, mainstream doctors typically rush to treat them with all they’ve got.

And that’s even with cancers that will likely disappear all on their own.

Cancer is more than just a name or diagnosis… it’s a gold mine.

Now, a brave group of researchers from Australia and the U.S. have come forward and published a review in The BMJ making a case for that theory, saying that many tumors should never be labeled as “cancer” in the first place.

While they may not succeed, at least you’ll learn the truth about what’s going on in cancer care — and how doctors have been practicing the same routine when it comes to diagnosing this disease for over 160 years.

Overdiagnosed and overtreated

Until fairly recently, every time any malignant growth has been found, it’s been called “cancer.”

But that’s a routine that dates back to well over a century ago… when biopsies were looked at by candlelight!

But as Dr. Ray Moynihan, one of the Australian researchers involved in this new review, put it, “It’s time to stop telling people with a very low-risk condition that they have ‘cancer’ if they are very unlikely to be harmed by it.”

Take breast cancer, for example. Reams of research now tell us that possibly up to 40 percent of cases are “not going to grow, spread, and kill.” It will just stay the same, says Dr. Otis Brawley, head of the American Cancer Society. That’s certainly quite an admission from the chief medical officer of the most mainstream of all cancer groups!

In fact, in a certain number of those “cancer” diagnoses, said Brawley, the tumors could actually shrink… or just go away entirely of their own accord.

But instead of arming a woman with that information, she’ll be told she has breast cancer… and very likely be pressured into undergoing painful, disfiguring, and risky treatments.

The only justification? A scary label that’s been slapped onto her file.

Another example is a low-grade, slow-growing prostate tumor. As we’ve told you over the years, more and more researchers are now agreeing that this kind of “cancer” will never spread or cause any problems.

In those cases, what’s called “active surveillance” is the best approach. In other words, keeping an eye on it instead of jumping in with the big guns of surgery and radiation.

So, back to my original question: What if that kind of “cancer” wasn’t called by the C word in the first place? Why, no guy would accept risky cancer treatments if he didn’t even have cancer!

And the same thing is true of many thyroid “cancers.” In the past few decades, the number of people diagnosed has increased by 300 percent. But most of those cases represent slow-growing papillary thyroid tumors that not only won’t cause any harm… but don’t even involve any symptoms.

Another cancer that isn’t!

So, if you’re given a cancer diagnosis — especially of the breast, thyroid, or prostate — the best thing you can do is stop, take a deep breath, and consider your options. Get a second or even third opinion before you proceed with any course of treatment.

Because the only thing worse than having to submit to radical surgery, radiation, or dangerous drugs would be doing so when you never should have gotten a cancer diagnosis in the first place.

“Removing the C-word from low-risk diseases” Charles Bankhead, August 17, 2018, Medpage Today, medpagetoday.com