Re: Radioactive Antibodies: outlook?

From: Steph (steph_at_vancouver.island)
Date: 02/14/05 

Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 02:48:44 GMT

<JF@NoName.com> wrote in message
news:hjTPd.2077345$f47.363944@news.easynews.com...
>> It's not a wild assed guess. It's based on the evidence.
>> But you should do what you think best
>
>
> I'm confused. I thought that the evidence for
>
> (1) delaying treatment until clinical symptoms appear
> vs.
> (2) treating on CA125 rise only
>
>
> was inconclusive. In other words, picking
> between (1) or (2) was a wild assed guess.
>
> Are you saying that there is a *concensus* that shows
> that (1) is better than (2)?
>
>
> Obviously, if repeated high quality clinical trials
> showed that option (1) was superior in outcome, I would
> have to reconsider my position.

No, it's just the conclusions you are drawing which I can't swallow.

My philosophy would be this:
There is no evidence that treating a patient without symptoms is better than
waiting until symptoms occur.
You can't make a patient without symptoms feel better by giving them
treatment, you can only make them feel worse, because all treatments have
side effects.
Therefore the best treatment is no treatment.

I know it sounds counterintuitive to many patients (and oncologists) but
when it's explained to my patients, many agree with the logic.

I put it another way here:
http://www.talkaboutsupport.com/group/alt.support.cancer/messages/108416.html

Relevant Pages

  • Re: scientific method (was: Mr Dawkins new book?)
    ... |> homeopathy the treatment is relative both to the symptoms and to the ... |> "state" the patient is in from the POV of general theories of how people ... |> necessarily do the same thing to each patient with the same symptoms, ... Patrick Herring, http://www.anweald.co.uk ...
    (uk.religion.christian)
  • Re: Delayed Treatments for Prostate Cancer
    ... treatment vs. no treatment. ... would you tell a patient that he had ... controlled trial of 700 patients to surgery vs. no surgery is a simple ... Your evidence is so limited it is simply unreliable. ...
    (talk.politics.medicine)
  • Re: ILADS guidelines now online
    ... > Evidence is not provided to support the guidelines. ... very useful to us in our work as patient advocates. ... studies determining the optimum length of antibiotic treatment or even ... the patient with palliative treatment for the remaining symptoms. ...
    (sci.med.diseases.lyme)
  • Re: scientific method (was: Mr Dawkins new book?)
    ... Patrick Herring wrote: ... |> Conventional treatments are relative to the symptoms, ... By "relative to the patient" I meant also ... |> varying treatment by psychological type, ...
    (uk.religion.christian)
  • Re: Avastin vs Lucentis: The Germans have joined the battle!
    ... So in your blog, as far as the European Study, it was mentioned, ... how does the patient choose properly when an evidence based ... When the evidence is NOT there, there is no informed decision really. ... double-blind study, where the assignment to treatment arms is made randomly, ...
    (sci.med.vision)