Can breast cancer be cured permanently? I m tensed for my mom.

She is suffering from ER/PR positive HER2 negative type. Got oprrated this Jan end. Had 3rounds of chemo, but developed pleural effusion 3 times. Tab Tamoxifen started but no response. Again 3 more chemo prescribed. Will she be alright?

[kontak TeamBCI]

Hi Sonu89. My sister also ER/PR positive. HER2 negative. Gone surgeries, 6 cycles chemo and now going radiation. We will seek Doctor Sumeet Shah to guide.

[sumeet_shah Administrator]

Hi sonu89,

Welcome to this forum. Feel free to share your experiences and ask questions.

I would like to know one thing. What stage of cancer does your mom suffer from? Since you mention pleural effusion. If you could tell us a bit more, we would be able to help you.

[Hidden in reply to sumeet_shah]

When she got operated that time she was tagged as grade II b. She took 3 cycles of chemo in march April. After that she developed pleural effusion. She was prescribed tab. Tamoxifen. But pleural effusion didn't subside. Now 3 more cycles of chemo has been prescribed. Tab. Tamoxifen has been stopped. We are under the guidance of Dr. S. H. Advani sir. I am too tensed for her.

[sumeet_shah Administrator]

How did the pleural effusion develop? Did the effusion test positive for any malignant cells in them?

[Hidden in reply to sumeet_shah]

tests were done but it came out to be negative. Efffusion was crystal clear. But why its developing again and again. Three times tapping had been done. Can u plz tell me ur e mailing address.

[sumeet_shah Administrator in reply to Hidden]

I will need to understand a few details actually. Feel free to contact me, I will try to solve your doubts. You will find contact details here: breastcancerindia.net/conta...

The best time to call up would be 9 PM to 10 PM

[Hidden in reply to sumeet_shah]

Hello sir. Please share this .I am also is tensed for the re occurrence chances.

[shirdi in reply to Hidden]

i have also the same feelings that after treatment how much are the chances of recurrance.

[rgci13 in reply to Hidden]

I am also tensed and scared of recurrence. In January 2014 I shall have my first mammo after completion of treatment in February 2013. Really scared.

[kontak TeamBCI]

Hi welling health care. We will be thankful if you give your opinions to all the community members This will help a lot to all of us

[welling_healthcare]

Homeopathy improves the overall immunity of the body and thus cures the disease from its root.

At Welling Clinic, we ourselves have been helping cancer patients live a cancer-free life for more than 13 years. We have not only helped palliation in advanced stages of cancer, but also cure in the early stages. In spite of helping a lot of cancer patients live a better life, we find that there is still very low acceptance or awareness about the Homeopathy treatment for cancer in our society. Usually cancer patients come to us as a last option, after all avenues of treatment are exhausted. In such advanced stages of cancer, even we have a limited scope of offering a total cure. Conventional doctors never refer their patients for Homeopathy treatment even as a last option, in spite of knowing, that their medicines are not helping the patients.

[MsLockYourPosts TeamBCI]

I find this last post frightening. Too many people have tried homeopathy alone as a way to avoid medical treatment and have died as a result. Many of them have tried to go back to traditional medicine, but by then their cancer is too advanced for it to help. In the US we now have medical doctors who specialize in integrative medicine. They work with oncologists to get the best of both worlds. I think this makes a lot of sense, as I do believe that a good diet and exercise are important, and studies are being done which indicate that some supplements can support the body and that being deficient in some vitamins and minerals, especially Vitamin D3 and B12 might be an issue.

[welling_healthcare]

There have been many cases of death reported when people have chosen allopathy as well. Most of the patients choose Homeopathy as a alternative when all other avenues have closed down. In such cases, even Homeopathy cannot be of much help and hence you must have seen a lot of people dying. Also Homeopathy shows best results when cancer is detected early and the patient is not very old. Said that, Homeopathy is not foolproof. Even it has its limitations. Just that not many people are aware and confident about the Homeopathy way.

My aim here is not to promote any means of treatment but to make people aware about the possible options. People should have a freedom to choose any treatment. Our job is just to put the options on front of them.

[sumeet_shah Administrator]

pkenn,

I fully agree with you.

Weling Healthcare,

This is not a place to debate which treatment is better or not. This forum believes in scientifically proven treatments. I have nothing against homeopathy. However, if you tell a patient (I am referring to prakriti's post, where her aunt is being planned for surgery and is in an operable situation, and you are advising her to come and try homeopathy) I am sincerely against it. It misleads them.

I have worked at Tata Memorial Centre, and I regret to tell you, that every third patient who steps in to TMC, has already taken either homeopathy or ayurveda as treatment for a few months, and the disease has progressed so much, that they are beyond any form of treatment. Tata Memorial Centre has about 40000 registrations annually. And see the database there. We have an excellent survival for properly treated patients.

You may produce hundreds of patients whom you may have cured by homeopathy, but TMC will show you thousands of patients who advanced in cancer because of homeopathy.

People should have a freedom to choose any treatment, yes, very much, I agree. But there has to be scientific basis and rationale behind treatments. Prove by ethical clinical trials your success stories. Just simple experiences dont help. Because, by your experience, you are saying you have cured so many. But by our experience, we have seen far far too many people who ended up to us in last stage of cancer, only because they were on these alternate treatments.

According to WHO statistics, India has one of the worst survival in cancers in the world, and a major reason for that is people turn straightaway to alternate treatments, waste time there and finally come to oncologists in a late stage.

There are far too many patients in 4th stage at the Tata Memorial Centre, which is just a few km away from your centre. You can tie up with them, try your treatments for stage 4 cancer patients in ethically designed clinical trials, show survival improvement. It will take not more than 5 years to do such a trial.

For your information, every single treatment, every single chemotherapy drug in breast cancer has undergone rigorous trials and was first launched for stage 4 patients. Only when it showed survival benefit, it was started for earlier stage patients. Over last 50 years, all this has evolved, and hence we are where we are today. The biggest example of success of these treatments is that, for the first time in last 50 years, the death rate from breast cancer has decreased in the West; survival has kept on increasing significantly. The average 10 year survival for a breast cancer patient is more than 70% there, where in India, it is less than 30 to 40% (I do not have actual statistics). And why is it so? Apart from late presentation, one of the main reasons is, people stick to alternate treatments!!

Homeopathy definitely has a role in many chronic diseases and works very well; I too advise my patients on that, and ask them to go for homeopathy for some chronic diseases. But for cancer, well, I just do not believe so.

Those suffering from cancer. are a very vulnerable lot, and are easily taken away by anything which may promise them survival. One should NEVER take advantage of this. Ever.

Please refrain on any form of advertising and igniting debates on modern medicine (this is not allopathy) vs homeopathy.

The aim of this forum is to help those suffering and their relatives, and help them out.

[Priya10 in reply to sumeet_shah]

I completely agree with Dr. Sumeet in this. I personally am not against homeopathy but there have been no scientific trials or empirical evidence that even suggests that it works for cancer.

The success stories often heard in homeopathy are often anecdotes and mostly do not share the entire picture of the type of cancer and stage of cancer it claims to have cured. There are different types of cancer and each type has its own way of behaving in the body. It is always safer to follow the scientific path that might be aggressive at times but knows what it is doing. This is not to say that homeopathy does not know but it still has not enough evidence or diagnostic tools that can help the lay person or the patient understand the nature of his or her disease.

Complementary therapies are supposed to complement the main treatment and facilitate the patient in dealing with the disease and treatment. And therefore, decisions of choosing the mode of treatment is a crucial one and should be taken practically with a consideration of all possible perspectives .

Also, I request welling health care to be careful in talking about success stories. Recovery and success rates can be interpreted in loads of different ways. We do not wish any vulnerable person who comes across this forum with the hope of finding support to be disillusioned in any way. Thank you.

[sumeet_shah Administrator in reply to Priya10]

Well said, Priya.

[rgci13]

My only complaint is not rec diving any mails. Please send me mails.

[sumeet_shah Administrator in reply to rgci13]

This new version of HU, by default, does not send emails. You will have to go to your settings and change the 'email preferences'. You can enable emails there, and then you will receive the notifications

[rgci13]

Ok. Thank you Doc.