Terry Thompson’s Blog

The actress who scared us in her Oscar-winning portrayal of a psychotic in the 1990 film, “Misery,” now can encourage us as a cancer survivor.  Kathy Bates went on to several other box office smashes such as “Fried Green Tomatoes,” “Titanic,” “Primary Colors,” and most recently, “Revolutionary Road.”  Kept a secret from her fans, ovarian cancer invaded her life in 2003, and she dropped out of the limelight for several months of chemotherapy.  On the Today Show last January, she explained that, for her, it had to be a private thing.  It was important to her to maintain her independence in battling the disease.  “I even got to the point where I didn’t go with my friends to chemo. I went by myself.  I just had to do it on my own.”  She attained remission after the chemo treatments and has been cancer free for over five years.  Unlike the celebrities highlighted in previous blogs, Kathy Bates story ended on a happy note.

Ovarian cancer forms in the tissues of the ovary.  The cause is unknown, but the risk increases for women over 50 and who have a family history of ovarian cancer, breast cancer, colon or uterine cancer, or pancreatic cancer.  Last year this type of cancer attacked 21, 650 new victims.  It took 15,520 lives.  As with most cancers, its mortality rate is high if not caught early.  Screening from regular gynecological exams is the best way to prevent the disease.  Ms. Bates regrets that she did not make her condition public sooner, because it might have persuaded more women to take precautions and get regular check ups.  Now she is all about group involvement as she does public service announcements for the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance.

In addition to research into better conventional treatment for ovarian cancer, various biologic therapies are being tested for strengthening the patients own immune system.  Targeted therapy is also gaining ground using drugs or other substances to identify and attack specific cancer cells without harming normal cells.  Although development of these integrative methods is funded at a only a minuscule level, they continue to hold great promise.  An important aspect of integrative oncology is the mental, spiritual, and emotional health of the patient.  It has been scientifically proven that attention to these “whole person” enhancements are critical to the healing process.  By Kathy Bates’ own testimony, these areas were apparently not exercised significantly during her cancer battle.  Unfortunately, few oncologists offer any counsel or options in these areas, even though they are evidence-based necessities to optimum and expeditious recovery.  These therapies need to be researched further, and more oncologists need to be trained in integrative practice.  This is what a new strategy for the war on cancer is all about.  Join in the effort by learning more and participating. 

If Peter Jennings was not your primary news source for over two decades, he was at least a well known television news reporter and anchor.  He landed the position of ABC World News Tonight anchor in 1983 and was a welcomed guest in millions of homes each evening through 2005.  Jennings began smoking as a 13-year-old.  He finally kicked the habit in 1988.  Earning numerous professional awards, he was at the peak of his career when he became ill in early 2005.  It was not until the summer of that year that he was diagnosed as having lung cancer.  Since he had not smoked in almost 20 years, tobacco was not necessarily a contributor.  Thousands of lung cancer’s victims have never used tobacco in any form.  In fact, although smokers are at much greater risk, over 60% of those who die from lung cancer are non-smokers.  Jennings began chemotherapy treatments immediately, which suggests that his cancer was Stage IV–metastasized to other parts of his body.  If detected early enough, often surgery will be the first treatment attempt.  However, lung cancer is a stealthy monster, and we currently have no screening methods for its early detection.  Just weeks after discovering the disease, Jennings died on August 7, 2005, at the age of 67.

Last year, over 215,000 Americans were diagnosed with lung cancer.  Many more had been diagnosed previously and were being treated for it.  Almost 162,000 died from it last year.  One was my older brother, Verl.  Verl had never smoked, never worked around asbestos, or did anything that normally contributes to the disease.  It is the number one cancer killer in both men and women.  A recent study showed that two-thirds of women believed that their worst cancer fear was breast cancer.  However, lung cancer kills more women than breast cancer.  This type of cancer accounts for 28 % of all cancer deaths–more than breast, prostate, and colon cancers combined.

Several unconventional treatments are presently being developed.  Anti-angiogensis, a procedure to restrict or eleminate the blood supply to malignant cancer tumors, is being tested for many types of cancers including lung cancer.  Precision surgery techniques involving laser technology could permit removal of certain cancers without harming healthy tissues, without causing excess bleeding, and without risking infections.  Laser surgery would be a major advancement for treating lung cancer.  Biological therapy builds the natural immune system by enhancing the white blood cells, particularly the killer T cells that attack cancer cells.  Biological therapy is the antithesis of chemotherapy due to its non-toxic nature and less harmful side effects.  These and many other methodologies could increase the effectiveness of conventional therapies and reduce their collateral damage to the body.  Research into these new and promising complementary treatments is slow in getting traction.  Since integrating the options into the established realm of oncology is a difficult process, they are not widely accessible.  Too few oncologists are integrative oncologists.  Demand for integrative oncology must come from the general public.  That requires increased awareness and support for a new strategy of integrative oncology.  Such increased awareness and support remains the objective of this blog and the Connie Thompson Foundation.  Visit our web site often: www.cancerchoices.org.       

A year ago next month, Ted Kennedy’s life took a dramatic turn when he suffered a seizure at his Hyannis Port home on Cape Cod.  A biopsy showed a malignant glioma in the upper rear of the senator’s brain.  In moments, the world knew of his diagnosis.  His treatment of surgery followed by chemo and radiation kept him out of the mainstream for months until he made a surprise and celebratory appearance at the presidential inauguration.  There, during lunch, he had another siezure and was transported to a nearby emergency room by ambulance.  Again, for a couple of hours, the global media coverage shifted from the president to the senator.  Cancer is a huge intrusion into anyone’s life, but for a celebrity, it draws attention of monumental proportion.  Suddenly, a person with instant fame from being born into the Kennedy family and rising to the top of his profession is no more able than 11 million others to discount this disease.  The difference between Ted Kennedy and most others is the benefit the anti-cancer movement gets from the public’s attention to a political icon.  We can be thankful for that increased awareness and use it in the fight while sincerely regretting the price Senator Kennedy is having to pay for it. 

Now, more people are learning that over 15,000 malignant gliomas are diagnosed annually in the U.S.  Those with severe forms live less than a year on average.  Fewer than 10 percent of people with this kind of cancer survive two years after their diagnosis.  Recent research regarding this cancer has shown some genuine promise.  Cedars-Sinai Institute has been developing a vaccine against malignant brain tumors.  The tumor is taken out by surgery, and some of the cancer cells are united with special immune cells.  Those combined cells are then injected back into the patient’s body as a vaccine.  This will highly activate the body’s natural immune system and cause it to mount an attack against the brain cancer.  In the earliest clinical trials, 60 percent of patients have an immune response against the tumor, and their survival is much longer than patients that don’t get the vaccine.  This and other research with cancer fighting vaccines convinces me that this is a very promising advancement in the war on cancer.  Alternative cancer treatment advocates for years have been saying that the anwser is in the natural immune system.  They proclamed that if we find ways to help the immune system fight the disease, the disease will be defeated. 

The concept of vaccines to fortify the immune system has worked for many other diseases throughout medical history.  Why don’t our scientists immerse themselves in it’s potential to erradicate cancer?  Vaccine research must be a major player in the field of integrative oncology–the new strategy that must be implemented in the war against cancer.  It is worthy of your awareness and support.  We can’t escape cancer.  We must fight it.  Learn all you can about the components of integrative oncology. 

Farrah Fawcett is no more important than any other of the 11 million Americans who are tortured by cancer today.  Her celebrity status, however, does generate an awareness of the disease that less popular victims don’t.  That is a good thing–the only good thing that can come from cancer. 

The “Charlie’s Angel” has fought many battles on TV for our entertainment, but her present battle is her most difficult yet.  In 2006, she was diagnosed with anal cancer, a rare type of the disease that is not usually detected through screening.  Declared in remission in 2007, she was tested three months later, and results confirmed the problem had returned.  If caught in time, the survival rate for this type of cancer is quite good.  If it spreads, or metastasizes, to other parts of the body, it becomes category four cancer which is usually terminal.  Unconfirmed reports are that she is in the category four stage. 

After disappointing results with conventional treatment, Fawcett traveled to popular clinics and visited oncologists outside the United States.  She was searching for options either not available or illegal in this country.  Recently, she has been receiving treatments in Germany.  The exact type of therapy she is receiving is not being released to the media, but it is obviously an alternative practice that she couldn’t get in America.  She is currently hospitalized in Los Angeles for a blood clot that is said to have formed following the treatment in Germany.  Initial reports were that she was in a coma, but her doctor has since denied those reports. 

Here is the saddest part.  Although the FDA and AMA should protect us against medical practices that have proven to be harmful, there are many prohibited practices that have not been adequately tested, show promise of great benefit, and are non-toxic.  There are even scientifically proven cancer treatments that are not authorized for use.  Our nation must become more accepting of testing treatment options that have substantial anecdotal evidence.  We must put into practice those methodologies that have been proven safe and effective, but remain unauthorized.  There are scores of potential therapies that are being used successfully on a global scale that the U.S. refuses to consider in mainstream medicine.  Thus, Farrah Fawcett and thousands of others are forced to travel to foreign clinics, often with less sanitary environments, for any option other than the conventional triad of surgery, chemo, and radiation.  Frequently, it is not the treatment in these clinics that brings bad results, but rather the conditions of treatment which would not be the case in the U.S. 

Our cancer treatment strategy must be re-engineered to include the bona fide scientific testing  and subsequent practice of legitimate complements to conventional treatment.  It is called integrative oncology, and it should be our new strategy.  I invite your comments.

I’ve been focusing on celebrities with cancer.  This post is dedicated to Patrick Swayze.  Swayze’s condition is a classic example of why we must take a different approach to cancer treatment.  Much is made today of cancer prevention and screening to detect cancer.  In fact, avoidance and early detection of the disease accounts for almost all of the minimal progress in recent mortality rates.  We have made very little progress in treating those who are in advanced phases.  Patrick Swayze has pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest forms of the disease, because its onset is largely undetectible, and it is very aggressive.  Less than 5 percent of patients live five years or more after diagnosis, and very few live more than a year.  Last year, 37,680 Americans were diagnosed with this type of cancer, and 34,290 died from it. 

Swayze was a model of health and vitality.  He was obvioiusly successful, great family life (married to Lisa more than 30 years-the only marriage for both), lived on an Aribian horse ranch in New Mexico.  When he was diagnosed, he was able to afford the finest medical treatment available.  Flying his own airplane to the Stanford Cancer Center regularly, he received everything medical science has to offer from the best doctors the medical profession has to offer.  In spite of the dibilitating treatment, he has managed to continue his work on the cable series, “The Beast,” and his next movie, “Powder Blue.”  However, every day is more difficult. 

I am all for preventing cancer and, failing that, finding it early.  Nonetheless, there are still 1.4 million people each year who have to take it on.  These are the ones that I am fighting for.  There has to be something more effective than the same old triad of surgery, chemo, and radiation that has failed to move the statistics appreciably in four decades.  There is.  It’s called integrative oncology.  Integrative oncology accepts the conventional therapy that proves helpful and adds a host of other natural and non-toxic options.  Through the synergy of the best of conventional treatment and complements of other non-harmful, evidence-based methodologies, we have a proven strategy that can win the war on cancer.  The problem is that it is extremely slow in coming.  It’s difficult to change 40 years of tradition in the deeply rooted institution of medical science. 

Keep coming back to this blog as we continue to explore integrative oncology–the future of cancer therapy.   

The news media have an insatiable appetite for celebrities with cancer.  In yesterday’s blog, I noted the recent coverage of Farrah Fawcett, Ted Kennedy, and Patrick Swayze.  In the recent past, we also heard much about Elizabeth Edwards, Tony Snow, Peter Jennings, Sheryl Crow, Fran Drescher, Cokie Roberts, Kylie Minogue, Robin Roberts, Jerry Orbach, Kathy Bates, and the list is endless.  The response to the disease by these prominent victims has been wide ranging.  Some are in remission, some are in treatment, and some have died.  Most were treated by conventional therapy alone.  A few embraced alternative treatments outside the United States.  I will address some of their experiences specifically in future blog posts.

The ubiquitous coverage of celebrities with cancer is creating a much increased awareness of treatment options.  Although conventional treatment is still the standard, terms like alternative, complementary, integrative, holistic, naturopathic, and eastern medicine are thrown around to describe treatment outside the conventional.  The lines between conventional treatment and everything else are blurred to say the least.  The confusion can be eliminated by dividing these terms into three categories: conventional, alternative, and integrative.  Conventional therapy is exclusively the three traditional practices of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.  Alternative therapy is the practice of anything that is instead of, or in place of, conventional therapy.  Integrative therapy is the practice of certain treatments that enhance the effectiveness of, and/or reduce the complications of, conventional therapy.  Integrative therapy can include some types of alternative therapies, but are integrated with conventional therapy. 

The new strategy advocated by this blog is to significantly increase the awareness and use of integrative therapy.  We do not oppose conventional therapy, but believe that many complementary options must be used to increase its efficacy and reduce its side effects.  Conventional therapy has proven unable to defeat cancer on a grand scale.  Numerous natural and non-toxic modalities have proven successful in helping the patient process and tolerate conventional treatments.  The result is remission, comfort, and a better quality of life for a longer period.

I wish no one had to suffer cancer and hold hope that we will get to that point soon.  In the meantime, I am thankful that those who battle it, especially celebrities with a platform, call our attention to it.  We just have to be smarter about how best to fight it.   

We Americans, although the world’s standard for individuality, are a people focused on celebrity.  Dancing with the Stars and American Idol consume us.  Grocers sell more tabloids than milk.  Cable channels run nonstop coverage of the latest Hollywood scandals.  Personal problems of politicians make national headlines.  Yet, the culture chasm that separates the rich and famous from the rest of us is not recognized by the diabolical intruder–cancer. 

Cancer is the great equalizer with no respect for status, gender, class, or wealth.  It does, however, tend to balance our humanity when we are reminded daily that we are all in this together.  Nobody gets a pass.  I just saw today that Farrah Fawcett is in the hospital comatose with probably only days to live.  She suffered for several years through chemotherapy ultimately traveling around the world in search of a cure.  Senator Ted Kennedy, a lifelong consumate and tireless public servant, is now virtually dependent on his caregivers for survival.  His seizure at the inauguration dominated the news for hours.  Patrick Swayze is said to have five weeks left to live.  He mesmerized us in Dirty Dancing (maybe in a rerun for you thirty-somethings and younger).  Hardly able to finish filming The Beast this year, he struggled to give us one last taste of his incredible artistry.  Now it looks like he is ready to reprise his role in Ghost as his longest running hit.  These have devoted their lives to our entertainment and enjoyment.  We have rewarded them with our admiration and from our pocketbooks.  Suddenly, almost surreally, there now seems to be no difference in celebrity and obscurity. 

Cancer is awful, and it is equally awful for everyone.  There is nothing good about cancer.  But, something good can come from it, especially when celebrities have to reap its devastation.  It gets the attention of others.  My heart goes out to these I have mentioned.  They are dealing with it like everyone else, but their pain is being shared by millions of their fans and admirers.  This empathy has a positive impact on the awareness of how critical this battle is.  Every reminder of the need to be a soldier in this war causes more people to consider enlisting.  Perhaps unbeknown to those of Hollywood and Washington who become victims of this disease, their celebrity generates action and support for the cure in ways that you and I could not. 

To Farrah, Ted, and Patrick, I pray for your strength and comfort.  I also thank you for your influence that makes this valley of your lives a call to action for those of us whose lives you have touched.     

Since our bail-out economy is now making trillion the new billion, speaking in billions of dollars doesn’t send the shockwaves through our soul like it used to.  However, in the context of a specific health issue, $200 billion is huge.  That’s how much the people of this nation have invested in the cancer war since it was declared in 1971.  During this four decade war, the mortality rate has decreased less than 10% and the longevity of cancer victims has not lenthened appreciably.  Positive movement that has been recorded in both of these areas is primarily due to prevention awareness and earlier detection from better screening.  The actual fight against the disease, the main target of the $200 billion, has seen very little success.  Yet, the sources of this $200 billion, the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the Komen Foundation, and numerous other government agencies and private charities, contribute almost exclusively to the long-established conventional treatment institutions and modalities.  Any funding of integrative oncology research for promising complements to conventional therapy from these sources is miniscule.  Our nation invests less than 1% of its cancer fighting dollars to anything outside of conventional research and treatment.  Billions and billons continue to be funneled toward improved chemicals and radiation.  We must change this paradigm.  Over the last few years, scientists have proven the efficacy of many natural products and methodologies for reducing the mortality of cancer, extending the life of the patient, and lessening the severity of the treatment.  If we just moved 25% of our funding to integrative oncoloty research and practice, that would be more than a 25-fold increase in support of this new strategy.  There are some signs of top-down activity from a small minority in the professoinal medical community in pursuit of this movement, but not enough to win the war.  Grass roots action from the public is what will be required.  Learn more about it.  Do more about it.  Redirect your donations to it.  Read my blog every day. 

I am about half way through the study, “Experiencing God.”   Even if you have done this study previously, this updated version is a must do.  I am influenced daily by its challenges, but perhaps in no way more than in my increased awareness of the paradigm shift that is happening in our war on cancer.  There is movement that is reason for hope.  The movement is not yet seen in extended survivability or lower mortality rates.  We are not yet seeing significant results on any front.  What we are seeing is more action in the realm of unconventional warfare.  More and more medical professionals and researchers are becoming intrigued with integrative medicine and its application to cancer treatment.  This itself is science, but it also has a spiritual aspect as top minds in the field are opening to the concept that natural means are essential to the healing process–even for cancer.  I am also becoming more sensitive to the urgency of the movement.  Many experts are predicting that cancer will pass heart disease in 2010 to claim the position of numer one killer in America.  We have been complacent long enough with conventional treatment exclusive of any other complements or alternatives.  We must move outside of that envelope, and quickly.  What say you?

Integrative oncology is the study, research, and practice of medical modalities (medicines and methods) that complement conventional cancer therapy (my simplified definition).  It includes physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional enhancements to the healing process.  It treats the person, not just the disease.  It can be nutritional supplementation, dietary regimen, detoxification, genetic typing, acupuncture, meditation, prayer, music therapy, and a host of other options under the supervision of a medical professional.   Integrative oncology has proven successful in many recent tests.  It has shown measurable results in improving the effectiveness of conventional treatment, reducing the bad side effects of convetional treatment, and lessening the need for and duration of conventional treatment.  The field is expanding.  It is worth the attention of all of us who are touched directly or indirectly by cancer.  That is all of us.