people who live with cancer without treatment

Reasons FOR living with your cancer without treatment: * You have advanced stage ovarian cancer and the survival rate statistics even with conventional treatment do not look good enough. * You do not want to ‘lose’ so many days of your ‘remaining life’ to the chemotherapy treatment and it’s side effects (the day of treatment and at least one extra day when you are feeling too unwell to get up) every week or fortnight of the treatment cycle – you want to make the most of what life ...

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How long cancer patient live no treatment or chemotherapy?

When a person’s health care team determines that the cancer can no longer be controlled, medical testing and cancer treatment often stop. But the person’s care continues, with an emphasis on improving their quality of life and that of their loved ones, and making them comfortable for the following weeks or months.

Can You Survive Cancer without treatment?

Stage 4 cancer usually has spread to multiple places in the body, meaning you can live only a few weeks or a few months. In rare cases, some people may survive for several months or even a year with stage 4 cancer, with or without treatment.

How to cure cancer without chemotherapy or surgery?

• Are elderly
• Have poor nutrition
• Are obese
• Have already taken or are currently taking other medicines
• Have already had or are currently getting radiation therapy
• Have low blood cell counts
• Have liver or kidney diseases
• May otherwise be unable to tolerate full doses

How to help someone living well with cancer?

What you can do: How to offer support

• Provide emotional support through your presence and your touch.
• Help the caregiver. ...
• Offer practical ideas on what you can do to help, and then follow through.
• Assume your help is needed, even if there are others also helping out.

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Can you live with cancer without treatment?

More than half of lung cancer patients will die within one year of diagnosis even with treatment. Without treatment, patients may die even sooner. For any hope of survival, medical or surgical treatment is necessary.

What happens if you have cancer and don't treat it?

The bottom line. Cancer can kill when tumors affect the function of major organs. Life threatening complications can also occur due to malnutrition, a weakened immune system, and lack of oxygen. Cancer treatments can prevent some of these complications, as well as disease progression.

Can a cancer patient survive long?

Yes, it is possible to have a long life with cancer. Yes, it is possible to have a long life with cancer. Though being diagnosed with cancer is still presumed as a death sentence, most cancers are treatable. Millions of people with cancer are living in the United States.

Can a person with cancer live alone?

Yes. It will take some extra planning and working out who can support you but it's possible to continue living alone when you have cancer. Having cancer and going through treatment raises many challenges and emotions. These may be harder to deal with when you live alone.

Is Stage 4 cancer a death sentence?

All these cases reflect that Stage 4 cancer is not a death sentence and a normal life can be achieved with personalized cancer treatment just like any other chronic illness.

Can you survive cancer without chemo?

It found that low-risk patients did well without chemotherapy. That study showed the test could select a cohort of patients with a 99 percent chance of five-year survival without distant metastasis. For those women, the risks of chemotherapy aren't justifiable.

How long can you live with Stage 4 cancer without treatment?

Patients diagnosed in stage 4 who decide against treatment live an average of 6 months. In contrast, those diagnosed with stage 1A disease who elect no treatment live an average of two years.

What is the longest someone has lived with cancer?

A two-time cancer survivor became the oldest living American. Thelma Sutcliffe turned 114 years old in October. She now holds the record as the oldest living American, as the previous record holder died recently at age 116. Sutcliffe has survived breast cancer twice during her lifetime.

Can a cancer patient live for 20 years?

Findings: Estimates of 5-year, 10-year, 15-year, and 20-year relative survival rates for all types of cancer were 63%, 57%, 53%, and 51%, respectively, by period analysis.

What happens if you leave cancer alone?

Besides finding tumors that would be lethal if left untreated, screening appears to be finding many small tumors that would not be a problem if they were left alone, undiscovered by screening. They were destined to stop growing on their own or shrink, or even, at least in the case of some breast cancers, disappear.

Why do cancer patients like to be alone?

Some cancer patients may feel overwhelmed by the situation and not know how to talk about their feelings with those who are closest to them. This can lead family members and close friends to feel rejected or unwanted, especially when they want to be there during their loved one's time of need.

Can Stage 4 cancer patient live alone?

Some people with advanced cancer may live alone and have little or no support from family or friends. If you live alone, you can seek assistance from other sources, including: your GP. the palliative care team.

Who uses CAM instead of medicine?

Surveys suggest the vast majority of consumers with medical conditions use CAM in addition to, rather than as a substitute for medicine – that is, it is truly “complementary”. But there is a smaller population that uses CAM as a true “alternative” to medicine. A study by Nahin et al in 2010 looked at data from the 2002 National Healath Interview Survey (NHIS), which is described as a representative sample of Americans. It examined the group that did not use “conventional care” in the past 12 months – no health professionals, no emergency room visits, no surgery, and no nursing care of any kind. It asked about alternative medicine, which included acupuncture, ayurveda, biofeedback, chelation, chiropractic, energy healing/Reiki, hypnosis, massage, naturopathy, homeopathy, specialized diets, high-dose vitamins, yoga, tai chi, qui gong, and meditation. The survey found that 19.3% of adults did not access any “conventional” health care in the past 12 months. Of this group, over one third (38.4%) had some health need (of which 23.8% considered a serious condition). In the population that did not use conventional care, one-quarter (24.8%) used some form of alternative medicine. And 12% (approximately 4.6 million Americans) were estimated to be using alternative medicine, and not conventional medicine, to treat one or more health issues. Barriers to accessing health care were explored and users of alternative medicine had poorer health and had more barriers to care, with about 20% noting the decision to use alternative care was based on cost considerations of conventional care. There were several limitations worth noting: Most importantly, the types of conditions treated with “only CAM ” were not collected. And as some users cited the costs of conventional care as a barrier, different insurance schemes might be expected to change utilization patterns. Finally, there is no assessment of outcomes. But this survey suggests that there is a small population that will preferentially treat a medical condition with CAM and not medicine.

How many women refused breast cancer surgery?

It compared patients who refused breast cancer with those that those that accepted surgery. Only 1.3% of women (70) refused surgery. Of that group, 37 had no treatment, 25 had hormone-therapy only, and 8 had other types of treatments.

How long does breast cancer last?

(An old study of untreated breast cancer suggest the 5 year survival rates are 18% at 5 years and 3.6% at 10 years.)

How many people use alternative medicine?

In the population that did not use conventional care, one-quarter (24.8%) used some form of alternative medicine. And 12% (approximately 4.6 million Americans) were estimated to be using alternative medicine, and not conventional medicine, to treat one or more health issues.

Does CAM help cancer?

Note that the difference is only statistically significant in (a) where all-causes of death were included and not (b), cancer-specific causes. So does that mean CAM helps? Probably not. The two groups are not well defined, and the “unknown” group could include CAM users – it is not a comparison of CAM versus no treatment. And as the types of CAM used was not documented, this is a heterogeneous group. The key point this comparison illustrates is that CAM users did dramatically worse than women that took conventional cancer care. Even delaying surgery to allow for CAM first significantly decreased the effectiveness of subsequent conventional care. The authors conclude, correctly, that there is no evidence to support using CAM as primary cancer treatment.

Does breast cancer cause progressive disease?

Consistent with the study above, the vast majority of breast cancer patients who refuse surgical intervention developed progressive disease. Even delaying surgery increased risks and overall mortality. Outcomes were better for patients that accepted surgery, but refused adjuvant treatments, like chemotherapy. However, even this strategy significantly raised 10-year mortality estimates.

Can you opt out of follow up on cancer?

Most patients who decide to opt-out of cancer treatment, also opt-out of any follow-up evaluation. So tracking down patients, and their outcomes, is essential. The effects of treatment refusals and delay, and the effectiveness of CAM as a substitute, has been evaluated in several groups of patients with breast cancer.

Why do people with slow growing tumors feel the need to act?

This is because the word “cancer” makes the diagnosis feel urgent, and it is hard to feel like one is "doing nothing.".

Why is it important to hear the word "cancer"?

This is important because cancer treatment poses many risks for individuals, not the least of which are treatment-related side effects and long-term effects.

Can prostate cancer cause shortening of life?

In addition, we know that some cancers, such as prostate cancer, may not cause a person any serious harm or even shorten their lives if they are left untreated. The researchers in this study presented an imaginary scenario to volunteers using a web-based survey.

Can cancer be treated?

The researchers found that using the "cancer" label led many people to choose surgery. This tells us that the perceptions and fears associated with a cancer diagnosis may lead reasonable people to opt for more treatment, even if they are reassu red that it is possible to watch and wait and that they may never need treatment.

Why are patients untreated?

Patients were untreated for the reasons that they refused to undergo cytotoxic therapy or the disease remained stable and the patients were asymptomatic. Certain patients required supportive treatment, such as antibiotics in case of infection, or blood transfusion for anemia. Eligibility criteria.

What is the effect of chemotherapy on colorectal cancer?

According to the RECIST criteria, stable disease is defined as a tumor reduction of less than 30% and tumor progression of less than 20% (18). Where evaluation by CT after treatment showed stable disease, the result may be attributed to either: i) the effect of chemotherapy, which inhibited disease progression , or ii) the biological characteristics of the tumor, which define how rapidly it develops. It is difficult to verify which interpretation applies in routine clinical practice. Relevant data are required to determine whether chemotherapy plays a significant role in regulating disease progression. One example of how data may be gathered involves a comparison of treated versus non-treated patients in a randomized trial. A study by Cunningham et al, which compared chemotherapy with irinotecan plus supportive care versus supportive care alone, showed that overall survival was significantly higher in the irinotecan group (p=0.001) (18). Results by these authors showed that one-year survival for the irinotecan group was 36.2% compared with 13.8% for the supportive care group. These percentages of one-year survival for each group are lower than those obtained in our study. The reason for this discrepancy is that the previous study included the time period after the administration of second-line treatment (18). On the other hand, the results of the study by Cunningham et al(18) indicate the advantage of chemotherapy in colorectal cancer. The aim of our study was to contribute to a better understanding of the biology of colorectal cancer. Our findings indicate that this is a slow-growing disease with a 65% survival rate after 1 year, and a 25% survival rate after 2 years (10/40 patients). Local treatment administered to 11/40 patients (27.5%) contributed little to overall survival.

Is colorectal cancer surgically treated?

Colorectal cancer is a common malignancy that is surgically treated. Radiotherapy has been successfully applied in rectal cancer as adjuvant therapy and in the treatment of residual disease. Chemotherapy based on 5-fluorouracil was previously administered, but without any noteworthy effects (1–3).

Is colorectal cancer a slow-going disease?

In conclusion, colorectal cancer is a slow-going malignancy, as indicated by the long-term survival of patients and the biological characteristics of the tumor. Keywords: untreated, advanced colorectal cancer. Introduction. Colorectal cancer is a common malignancy that is surgically treated.

Can metastatic colorectal cancer be treated without treatment?

The long-term survival of patients with metastatic advanced colorectal cancer without systemic treatment may be due to the biological characteristics of this tumor, indicating that it is a slow-growing malignancy. These findings are useful in obviating long-term or unstoppable chemotherapy when patients are in stable disease.

What is the most common outcome of cancer patients dying?

The most frequent outcome when cancer patients die is that whatever pain they have is controlled with narcotics and or sedatives.

What happens when you die from cancer?

The most frequent outcome when cancer patients die is that whatever pain they have is controlled with narcotics and or sedatives. There often comes a point in poorly treatable cancer situations that the treatment is as bad or worse than the disease.

Why do people decline chemotherapy?

Many patients decline chemotherapy for low odds of benefit especially if they have gotten very weak or have other symptoms that make their quality of life very poor. This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

Can radiation therapy help with metastatic bone cancer?

Cancers metastatic to bone are often painful but in some cases the discomfort is mild or more severe pain can be relieved with radiation therapy.

Is pancreatic cancer pain a problem?

But I’ve had many patients with pancreatic cancer where pain wasn’t a problem. Instead, like many other patients with advanced cancers, they became weaker and more frail as their cancer worsened, then became wheelchair and then bed bound. Cancers metastatic to bone are often painful but in some cases the discomfort is mild or more severe pain can ...

Who Uses Cam Instead of Medicine?

Effectiveness Evaluations

Conclusion: Alternative Medicine Isn’T Real Medicine

• Despite widespread claims, there is no evidence to support the use of any CAM treatment as a replacement for conventional cancer care. As the studies in breast cancer show, delaying treatment or substituting CAM for conventional cancer care dramatically worsens outcomes.The results of these studies will hopefully provide patients and health provide...

See more on sciencebasedmedicine.org

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