Talk:Unproven cancer therapy

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[edit] Scope of topic

This may be too big of a topic to successully address... or maybe I'm just struggling. Thoughts on how to organize it? Is there really going to be unique information here that isn't included in the numerous other pages that deal with alternative and unproven medical treatments? I'm afraid we're just going to inflame the usual characters and create a lot of controversy without actually adding anything of value. Thoughts? MastCell 23:09, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Topic title

There is some crossover between cancer therapy and other health therapies particularly in the unproven category. Maybe the topic should be called Unproven therapies orUnproven medical products. The methods by which non cancer treatments are assessed are no different in any substantial way to the methods for testing cancer treatments.--Kenneth Cooke (talk) 11:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

While the introductory information certainly applies to the 'unproven' (*cough*) therapies in many fields, I think there's certainly room to have an article – perhaps this one – that looks specifically at the history and current state of the art in cancer treatment snake oils. They could be broken down into a number of categories, perhaps: diets; supplements; novel drugs and tinctures; unusual machines; psychological therapies; etc.
Cancer therapy is a somewhat special case in the world of unproven therapies. Cancer is a really scary diagnosis. Accepted therapies – for which proper trials have actually been conducted – often have serious, unpleasant, and even dangerous side effects. Even with gold-standard treatment, many cancers still have a low survival rate. The course of disease can be unpredictable, and it can be difficult to seperate the effects of unproven therapies from the effects of a previous, subsequent, or simultaneous conventional therapy, or the occasional spontaneous remission. People want to believe that there's a quick and easy cure.
I am hard-pressed to think of another disease (or class of diseases) that has drawn – and continues to draw – so many charlatans and deluded optimists. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm inclined to focus here on unproven stuff for cancer, but I suspect that similar issues come up in many fields: Most major psychiatric disorders. Autism. Some autoimmune diseases. Probably lots of things. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:02, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Off topic

There is more information in Redox Therapy. Perhaps Redox Therapy should have a subheading Cancer Therapy.Rickrhrhrh 13:19, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed Coley´s Toxins

There is plenty of evidence from case studies and old trials that the toxins work. I don´t think they belong here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by V.B. (talk • contribs) 07:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

It depends whom you ask. Most mainstream oncologists will regard it as unproven, because otherwise it would be used as a therapeutic modality. Case studies and old trials may not be the best quality sources for such assertions. JFW | T@lk 21:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Full text at PMC: 1479838 summarises much of the relevant research, but at the moment it is all still very experimental. JFW | T@lk 21:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Unsourced opinion"

This was removed yesterday:

  1. Fraudulent promotion and sale of products for the treatment or prevention of cancer which are known to be ineffective.

I doubt that the anon thinks that there has never been a con man in the history of the world who tried to get rich off of something that he knew wouldn't work. Is the question here really whether deliberate fraud is really "unproven"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Breaking the treatments into sections

We should break these trials into sections. Some have been tested extensively and found not to work (laetrile, while others have been tested with promising results, such as non-invasive RF treatment. Please comment. ImpIn | (t - c) 22:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

While I don't object, I think it's likely to result in a lot of individual spats over whether each item belongs in the category you've assigned. It would be best to have a source for each item before classifying it this way.
As a "halfway" measure, we could certainly draw some broad distinctions: X, Y, and Z are unproven because they are inadequately tested, but A, B, and C have been tested and proven useless. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:31, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[1] and [2] are two papers on the topic. I don't think there were any spats on this page, since there's hardly any discussion here. By the way, I found that there's another page for the "under consideration" type treatments: Experimental cancer treatment