Can folk remedies cure cancer?

  I have often heard people say, “Prescriptions and test prescriptions can kill famous doctors. Is this really true? Over the years, there are many individual cases of cancer cured by various prescriptions and tests. However, there is a lack of systematic research and clinical observation. Up to now, we can only see individual cases of effective cancer treatment with folk remedies and no general rule has been found yet. Individual cases are not enough to illustrate the efficacy, in fact, there are still individual tumor patients who do not know that they are cured by themselves, these individual cases lack scientific convincing power.  Generally speaking, the treatment of tumor by TCM is mainly to support the righteousness, improve the general condition of the body and alleviate the reaction to radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and has limited direct therapeutic effect on tumor, and is an auxiliary means of tumor treatment, which is the consensus reached by experts and scholars on the evaluation of TCM treatment of tumor. Therefore, there is still a need to further explore this valuable heritage of Chinese medicine, to sort it out, to remove the falsehoods and keep the truth, to remove the roughness and extract the essence, and to find out the prescriptions that are really effective, so as to enrich the clinical tumor therapeutics.  Therefore, it is undesirable to rely on single prescriptions or experimental prescriptions to treat various kinds of cancer. The same cancer, treated with the same prescriptions, cannot be duplicated by the vast majority of patients. On the contrary, it is often seen that some patients refuse other treatment methods due to excessive belief in prescriptions, thus delaying the disease and losing the chance of radical cure. In particular, we should be more alert to certain “panacea for cancer” with unknown ingredients to prevent misleading, otherwise, it will not only fail to cure the disease, but also have adverse consequences.  In fact, as early as 1995, the World Health Organization statistics show that the scientific and standardized application of surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and other treatment means have made the total cure rate of cancer reach 45%, of which the role of surgery accounts for 22%, the role of radiotherapy accounts for 18%, the role of chemotherapy accounts for 5%. Generally, surgery is the main treatment for early stage patients, supplemented by other treatments according to the situation, and the integrated treatment of radiotherapy and chemotherapy is mostly used for middle and late stage patients. In the past 20 years, with the continuous development of radiotherapy equipment, precise radiotherapy has gradually become the mainstream technology of tumor radiotherapy, and the efficacy of radiotherapy is gradually improving, many early-stage tumors can achieve comparable efficacy with surgery by radiotherapy, and it is non-invasive and can preserve the integrity and function of organs, which is more acceptable to patients. Radiotherapy for early-stage tumors has gradually become one of the development trends of tumor treatment, and in some tumors it even has the tendency to replace surgery. Stereotactic radiotherapy, including X-knife and Gamma Knife, has achieved the effect of “bloodless surgery” in the treatment of certain tumors or benign lesions of small size and regular shape with its focus and high efficiency.  At present, according to the type of tumor, histological typing, clinical stage, expression of various tumor markers and the general condition of the patient, the formulation of scientific, standardized and individualized comprehensive treatment plan that suits the actual situation of the patient is the treatment model that must be followed in the field of tumor treatment at home and abroad. Therefore, it is recommended that cancer patients should go to oncology specialists in regular hospitals with the attitude of respecting life and advocating science, and choose standardized and scientific comprehensive treatment plan. If friends introduce any prescriptions or experimental remedies, they should consult oncology specialists before deciding whether to adopt them or not, and should never try them blindly.