Chemotherapy may spread cancer and trigger more aggressive tumours, warn scientists

[C.Martel]

Chemotherapy could allow cancer to spread, and trigger more aggressive tumours, a new study suggests.

Researchers in the US studied the impact of drugs on patients with breast cancer and found medication increases the chance of cancer cells migrating to other parts of the body, where they are almost always lethal. Around 55,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in Britain every year and 11,000 will die from their illness.

Many are given chemotherapy before surgery, but the new research suggests that, although it shrinks tumours in the short term, it could trigger the spread of cancer cells around the body. It is thought the toxic medication switches on a repair mechanism in the body which ultimately allows tumours to grow back stronger. It also increases the number of ‘doorways’ on blood vessels which allow cancer to spread throughout the body.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/07/05/chemotherapy-may-spread-cancer-trigger-aggressive-tumours-warn/

[Norweger]

It's amazing just how much of the so called treatment in western medicine that has the exact opposite effect.

[brosil]

Yup, that's true, depending on the type of cancer. Some are unusually "brittle" and will fragment at the drop of a hat. They'll spread like crazy without chemo as well so it doesn't matter.

[Neuro]

It's amazing just how much of the so called treatment in western medicine that has the exact opposite effect.

I think it has to do with all the "anti-" types of treatment allopathic medicine is based upon, essentially a continuation of exorcism done by the monks in convents during medieval times, since the purpose is to "kill" the "evil", which is either a foreign life or a naturally occurring process in the body, that foreign life or the naturally occurring process will develop defenses against what is attempting to suppress or kill it.

Generally it would be better instead to try and support what is working well in the body. Trauma and emergency medicine does this fairly well, with the purpose of stabilizing the patient.