Nourished Magazine :: Wisdom to thrive by

Conflicting findings from laboratory tests are a great problem in the treatment of diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis and cancer.

It is important not to rely on any one test for cancer. Most tests are not adequate or reliable when used alone to diagnose cancer because all too often the tests yield false positives. A false-positive test is a test result or finding which suggests the presence of a disease which turns out to not be there. A false-negative test is a result or finding which suggests that the dreaded disease is not there but which, on further investigation, such disease is found to be present. False positive and false negative results either cause unwarranted concern or unwarranted relief, and they can lead to additional expense.

False positive: A result that is erroneously positive when a
situation is normal. It’s when a test designed to detect
cancer is positive but the person does not have cancer.

Twenty five percent or more of women will experience a false-positive screening mammogram.i The CA-125 test returns a false positive result of about 50% of Stage I ovarian cancer patients. The CA-125 test has an 20% chance of returning false positive results from stage II, III, and IV ovarian cancer patients. A new blood test that promises advance warning of colon cancer has a false positive rate up to 18% of the time in normal people and in people with benign polyps and other noncancerous growths.ii The test detects either of two chemical markers dubbed colon-cancer-specific antigen-3 (CCSA-3) and CCSA-4. Current PET-CT scanners with standard commercial software designed to provide images of the heart are falsely indicating coronary artery disease in as many as 40 percent of patients, according to a study published on the cover page of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.iii Researchers estimated that PET scans could most accurately detect cancer 40% of the time. The false positive rate was 58%.iv

The inspection of cells for the diagnosis of cancer is subjective,
as much an art as a science. It appears that there is as
much subjectivity in the diagnosis of cancer as there is science.
- Dr. Burt Berkson
FDA Investigator for IV use of ALA

Among 1,087 individuals participating in a cancer screening trial who received a battery of tests for prostate, ovarian, colorectal and lung cancer, 43 percent had at least one false positive test result, according to Jennifer Elston Lafata, Ph.D., director of the Center for Health Services Research at the Henry Ford Health System and the lead author on the study. v Men who get a “false-positive” prostate cancer result — an abnormal screening test followed by a biopsy indicating no evidence of cancer — appear more likely to worry about their subsequent risk of cancer and report more problems with sexual function compared to men with normal screening results, according to a University of Iowa study.vi

The more a woman weighs, the greater the risk that her mammogram will have false positive results. Dr. Joann G. Elmore and colleagues analyzed more than 100,000 mammograms from nearly 70,000 women. “Obese women had more than a 20% increased risk of having a false positive mammogram result.”vii

The London Daily Mail reported on a man diagnosed with cancer who was told he had less than a year to live. “The 62-year-old council worker quit his job, sold his car, stopped paying his mortgage and dug into his life savings so he could treat himself and relatives to expensive restaurant meals. He even sold all his clothes but for the black suit in which he expected to be buried. A year later, however, with no sign of the Grim Reaper coming to call, he went for tests - which gave him a clean bill of health. He had never had cancer at all.” “It’s put me and my family through hell.”viii

Research currently shows that the risks of PSA screen testing may outweigh the benefits in screening men at average risk of developing prostate cancer. The PSA test has a high rate of false-positive results. Screening means looking for early signs of a particular disease in ‘healthy’ people who do not have any symptoms. Screening cannot prevent cancer; only find it as early as possible. What makes a good screening test? Hard to really say but the first thing doctors are looking for is a test that is capable of finding cancers early.

Commonly used tests to screen for prostate cancer
don’t seem to work as effectively in men who are obese.

False-positive results on cancer screening tests are common and can lead to costly follow-up testing, according to a report in the December issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention.ix “We know that having a false alarm at a breast cancer screening causes significant negative psychological harm,” says Dr. John Brodersen, co-author of a recent study on the impact of false-positive cancer testing. “Unfortunately, previous studies of the long-term psychological consequences of these false alarms have used inadequate measures.” The survey, developed by Brodersen and his colleagues, focuses on six psychosocial dimensions; anxiety, behavioral impact, sense of dejection, impact on sleep, breast examination and sexuality. The survey showed that women who had an abnormal screening mammography later confirmed to be false-positive were negatively influenced in all six categories.

Given the economic and psychological implications of false-positive screening results, it is imperative that cancer screening is offered in a setting that allows informed decision-making but is that possible with your modern day oncologist?

“This is an urgent issue to be addressed, because one-in-four women following the European Union-recommended biannual breast cancer screening program over a 20-year period will experience a false-positive screening mammogram,” says Brodersen.x Radiologists are interpreting way to many mammograms as abnormal.

Test performance dramatically improves when the sought-for disease has a high percentage chance of actually existing in the case population. That is, a test for lung cancer on ALL persons will poorly perform as compared to a test on a person who is (1) male (2) long-time cigarette smoker (3) has a spot on the lung (4) spot does not have any visible calcification and (5) spot has a stellate shape by imaging studies.

Screening tests have the actual effect of attempting to re-position the patient into a population in which the sought-for disease is more prevalent.

Immunohistochemistry (immuno-histo-chemistry IHC) is a protein-based test that is used to provide an assessment of the amount of HER2 protein receptors on the surface of the cancer/fungus cells. In HER2-positive tumors there is more than a normal amount of HER2 protein (i.e. HER2 protein “overexpression”) on the cell surface. The IHC test is done by a pathologist in a laboratory on a sample of a tumor removed during a biopsy, a lumpectomy or a mastectomy. The steps in the procedure are: breast cancer tissue is prepared for testing the sample of tumor (a thin slice) is exposed to an antibody which attaches to the HER2 receptors the antibody attached to the HER2 protein receptors reacts with other substances that cause a color change in the tissue sample a pathologist must judge the degree of color change in the cells of the sample; the more HER2 protein the darker the staining: evaluation of the number of cells with color and the color intensity of the cells may be performed with computer imaging methods the percentage of cells in the sample with color and the intensity of the color of the cells on the slide determines the score for the test

The scoring for an IHC test is from 0 to 3+.
Zero is HER2 negative
1+ is considered HER2 negative
2+ is considered a borderline or equivocal result
3+ is HER2 positive

Problems encountered with IHC testing: The protein being measured can be damaged during certain preparations of the tissue sample causing variability in test outcome. Evaluation of the sample often requires the pathologist to subjectively judge the degree of color (of the HER2 protein on the cell). False positive or false negative HER2 test results can occur.

I respectfully asked the chief pathologist why he thought it was
cancer. He indignantly told me that the tissue was bluer than
that surrounding it. The chief was very upset that I had questioned
his professional judgment. The surgeon proceeded to remove
the young woman’s breast but did she actually have breast cancer?
- Dr. Burt Berkson

Positron Emission Tomography - PET scan - PET works by providing a dynamic image of the body’s interior. Instead of taking a picture of the bones, like an X-ray, or the internal organs and soft tissue, like a MRI, PET lets doctors visualize the body’s metabolism. Cells use the simple sugar glucose as a source of energy. By tracking how much glucose is metabolized in different areas of the body, PET enables physicians to map the body’s use of the fuel. In order to see the glucose, nuclear medicine physicians attach radioactive tracers to a chemical cousin of glucose. When the mix is injected in a patient, the scanner and computer work together to create an image.

Do they really have a clue about what they are talking about when it comes to cancer? Do they know what their findings really mean?

Because cancer/fugus cells are dividing rapidly, they break down glucose at a much higher rate than most normal cells and the increased activity can show up on a scan. In this way, doctors can see both primary and metastatic tumors. A PET scan can verify that even small masses are cancerous because the technique uses a type of sugar, or glucose, that glows. Cancer/fungus cells ingest larger amounts of glucose than normal cells, so they glow “hotter” than normal cells. So while CAT can identify suspicious masses based on their size, PET scans can identify masses that are cancerous based on their behavior. PET scans can be used in place of biopsy in some patients suspected of having lung cancer, and helps to guide treatment. “PET allows us to see the metabolism of a tumor,” Conti said. “From that we can infer whether it’s benign or malignant, if it has spread or whether treatment has been successful. The main concern we have is that this test uses radiation; however, the radiation exposure involved is less than that received from many CT Scan Procedures.

Thermography uses thermal imaging which detects new blood vessels and chemical changes associated with a tumor’s genesis and growth. Thermography measures the radiation of infrared heat from our body and translates this information into anatomical images. Thermography offers a very early warning system, often able to pinpoint a cancer/fungus process years before it would be detectable by mammography. This approach can detect cancer/fungus when they are at a minute physical stage of development, when it is still relatively easy to halt and reverse the progression of the cancer/fungus colony.

Some oncologists actually think that breast cancer tumors have been growing slowly for up to 20 years before they are found by typical diagnostic techniques. If they actually created a test that caught the cancer in the first days they could start attacking the cancer with the weapons of modern day oncology. If such early diagnosable and treatable cancer patients died we would have the serious problem of never knowing with clarity what the patients died from, disease or treatment, because we could never be secure of the test results.

T/Tn Antigen Test developed by Dr. Georg Springer are thought to detect the majority of cancers before any biopsy can. The T and Tn antigens are proteins on the surface of blood and skin cells and can be identified by the immune system antibodies. The concentration of these antigens vary depending on the cancer type and stage. A skin prick can predict or indicate the likely development of cancers, even 6-10 years in advance of other tests. These early warning diagnostics of cancer are of course dangerous because they initiate a process that all to often ends a person on chemotherapy or radiation treatments.

There are many companies starting to do whole body scans to detect cancers early. These are being touted as “safe”. However, the FDA has issued a warning that high-tech computerized body imaging for health screening could be exposing the public to risky levels of radiation. This should not surprise us since they already use treatments that cause cancer to treat cancer. Using tests that cause cancer to test for the presence of cancer is a madness at the heart of orthodox oncology. What is worse is that they treat cancer with methods that cause cancer. It is an unhealthy tradition of orthodox oncologists who are supposed to heal and cure. Why should we be surprised when most patients die when treated by modern oncology?

Blood and urine samples may also be tested for various substances, called tumor markers, which may indicate cancer. Tumor markers are typically chemicals made by tumor cells, but tumor makers are also produced by normal cells in your body. CA125 is used for detecting ovarian cancer and is unreliable. Patients may have elevated tumor markers because of conditions unrelated to cancer, such as endometriosis or menstruation irregularities. Patients may show elevated CA125 markers if they have diverticulitis. Individuals who have the initial, or Stage 1, ovarian cancer, display elevated CA125 markers only about half the time.

The official line of thought in the cancer industry is a line of
thought which is built on many unknowns and very few certainties.
- Dr. Tullio Simoncini

A biopsy is the removal of some tissue from a body, for examination in order to diagnose a condition. Biopsies may be surgical removal of the tumor, in part or completely, or completely with wide margins. Biopsies can also be done with needles, either a core needle biopsy or a fine needle aspiration [FNA]. Tumors that are biopsied or otherwise ‘interfered with’ have a higher incidence of metastasis than tumors that were removed in an untouched block with wide margins and good tumor hygiene. Tumor disruption may facilitate or promote access to the bloodstream. Numerous studies have shown that biopsies by fine needle, core needle or open biopsy show a higher rate of metastasis, and movement of cancer cells from one place to another via the bloodstream. Tumor cell displacement was observed in 32% of patients who had undergone large-gauge needle core biopsy of the breast.xi Needle biopsies should be taken seriously as they can indeed cause seeding along the path of the needle.

“A 68-year-old female who had undergone total hysterectomy for carcinosarcoma five months previously was noted to have a solitary nodular shadow in the right lung on chest X-ray. Percutaneous needle biopsy of the lung was performed via the right anterior chest wall, and the histologic findings showed metastasis from carcinosarcoma of uterus. Two months after needle biopsy, a chest wall mass appeared of the site of puncture of the lung needle biopsy. The mass was resected to relieve the chest wall pain and the specimen showed carcinosarcoma of uterus histologically. We consider that tumor cells were implanted to the chest wall along the needle tract after percutaneous needle biopsy of the lung. The postoperative chest computed tomogram showed the route of tumor implantation from the metastasis of right lung into the right chest wall. …”xii

Open or incisional biopsy utilizes a surgical procedure to open the tumor to obtain a large sample of the tissue for analysis. This technique is overly invasive and riskier than the less invasive needle biopsy techniques described above. Incisional biopsy carries all the risks of surgery and anesthesia including infection, bleeding, and incorrect choice of incision.

Lung cancer kills more people worldwide than any other cancer. However, according to a report published in The Journal of Best Clinical Practices for Today’s Physician, no available lung cancer screening protocol has proven sufficiently robust, safe, and cost effective to warrant a recommendation for population-based screening. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force stated that although it found “fair evidence that screening with low-dose computerized tomography, chest x-ray, or sputum cytology can detect lung cancer at an earlier stage” than it would be detected without screening, the group also found “poor evidence that any screening strategy for lung cancer decreases mortality.”

Choosing a physician to treat ones cancer is delicate especially when one considers the war zone that cancer care has become. It is also critical, because of all these false positives to have a doctor who can communicate and listen on the deepest levels of being because that is exactly what is needed when dealing with life and death. You know you are in the wrong office if your physician doesn’t listen well, immediately discounts your concerns, or only focuses on a narrow area of your health and/or your body. When your physician is not inclined to take the time to explain to you the particularities of what she feels is your medical condition and the reliability of the tests that determine diagnosis and prognosis, it is time to search for another doctor.

When you perceive a doctor’s communicate contains smoke screens, i.e., these matters are too technical to understand, run for the hills. Rigid thinking, arrogance or excessive self-assuredness are bad signs. If your physician seems to see everything in black and white, will not question his or her own opinions or the results of the tests he orders, look for someone else. Every physician should welcome a second opinion.

Polls and questionnaires show that three doctors out of five would
refuse any chemotherapy because of its ineffectiveness against
the disease and its devastating effects on the entire human organism.

Time magazine reporters interviewed doctors to find out what they know about our health-care system and why it frightens them so much when they find themselves in the role of the patient. “It requires almost a stroke of luck to enter a U.S. hospital and receive precisely the right treatment,” according to the article’s authors. “A landmark Rand Corp. study published in 2003 found that adults in the U.S. received, on average, just 54.9% of recommended care for their conditions.” We need more than luck when dealing with something as life threatening as cancer.

Every patient brings in around 200 thousand
dollars for the treatments when all said and done.

If you are being diagnosed with cancer with one of these unreliable tests invariable you will be told to undergo surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormonal therapy, etc. Most people mistakenly believe that all medical treatments are solidly grounded in science, and that in order to be made available to patients, such treatments must be unequivocally proven to be effective by rigorous clinical trials. Nothing could be further than the truth.

The majority of the cancer patients in this country die
because of chemotherapy, which does not cure breast,
colon or lung cancer. This has been documented
for over a decade and nevertheless doctors
still utilize chemotherapy to fight these tumors.
- Dr. Allen Levin
The Healing of Cancer

Natural cancer treatments are seen with suspicion by most medical doctors, and they often say that they are unproven and therefore cannot be used but the truth is chemotherapy and radiation treatments are a most cruel waste of time. The Journal Clinical Oncology addresses exactly this question of efficacy. Professor Graeme Morgan, Professor Robyn and Dr. Michael Barton, all oncologists, published survival data from the Australian cancer registries and the US National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance Epidemiology. They concluded that:

Chemotherapy contributes just over 2 percent
to improved survival in cancer patients!xiii

The authors found that the contribution of chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adults was just:

2.3 percent in Australia
2.1 percent in the USA.

A German epidemiologist from the Heidelberg/Mannheim Tumour Clinic, Dr. Ulrich Abel has done a comprehensive review and analysis of every major study and clinical trial of chemotherapy ever done. Abel found that the overall worldwide success rate of chemotherapy was “appalling,” only 3%, because there was simply no scientific evidence available anywhere that chemotherapy can “extend in any appreciable way the lives of patients suffering from the most common organic cancers.” He describes chemotherapy as “a scientific wasteland” and states that at least 80 percent of chemotherapy administered throughout the world is worthless.xiv

If I were to contract cancer, I would never turn to a certain
standard for the therapy of this disease. Cancer patients
who stay away from these centers have some chance to make it.
- Prof. Gorge Mathe
Scientific Medicine Stymied

Oncologists remain optimistic that cytotoxic chemotherapy will significantly improve cancer survival despite the mounting evidence of chemotherapy’s lack of effectiveness. Meta-analysis of seven trials that provided individual patient data (866 patients) showed that palliative chemotherapy was associated with a 35% reduction in the risk of death (95% confidence interval 24% to 44%). This translates into an absolute improvement in survival of 16% at both six and 12 months and an improvement in median survival of 3.7 months.xv For this small margin of life extension oncologists are quite prepared to continue bombarding patients with more chemotherapy and radiation without thinking of the detrimental side effects, which often include bankruptcy and physical misery leading to the most terrible death imaginable. Tumors do shrink but people still die.

With almost fifty percent of Americans in the near future doomed to wake up one morning to discover they have cancer, and with the thirty-year old war on cancer lost, it is time to look again at a subject that many of us will eventually have to face. It has been a strange war to lose, with the wrong people being the winners. At the beginning of the war about one in four were known to contract cancer, and during these years that figure has moved past one in three and is now hurtling toward the one in two mark.

References

• [i]http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070719155149.htm
• [ii] Getzenberg, R.H. Cancer Research, June 15, 2007, manuscript received ahead of publication. Robert H. Getzenberg, PhD, director of urology research, Brady Urological Institute; professor of urology, oncology, pharmacology, and molecular sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Durado Brooks, MD, MPH, director, prostate and colorectal cancers, American Cancer Society, Atlanta.
  http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=81891
• [iii] http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/75976.php
• [iv] Whole-Body PET Scans Have High False Positive Rates for Breast Cancer. C.E. Carr et al. American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, June 2006, Abstract 530
  http://www.breastcancer.org/research_screening_071906.html
• [v] December 2004 issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.http://www.news-medical.net/?id=6856
• [vi] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070302130929.htm
• [vii] http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=56934
• [viii] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=453095&in_page_id=1770
• [ix] men who incurred a false positive result for either prostate, lung or colorectal cancer averaged $1,171 in additional medical care expenditures compared to men with all negative screens. More than half, 51 percent, of the men in the study had at least one false positive test.
  For women, 36 percent had false positive screening results. Women with a false positive screen for ovarian, colorectal or lung cancer experienced $1,024 more in follow-up medical care expenses compared to women with all negative results.The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute and is part of a larger trial of the effectiveness of screening for prostate, lung, colorectal and ovarian cancers.
• [x] Survey Determines Impact of False-Positive Cancer Tests; Blackwell Publishing Ltd.; July 20, 2007;
  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070719155149.htm
• [ xi] Core needle biopsies, sometimes called tru-cut biopsies, use a larger bore needle than fine needle biopsies. A larger sample of tissue is obtained than with FNA (fine needle aspiration). A larger sample is removed, with fewer passes, more often allowing a specific cell type to be diagnosed.
• [xii] Nihon Kyobu Shikkan Gakkai Zasshi 1992 Jul;30(7):1333-7
  case of pulmonary metastasis from carcinosarcoma of uterus with subcutaneous implantation of tumor cells along the needle tract after percutaneous needle biopsy of lung]. [Article in Japanese] Takahashi T, Mori K, Suga Y, Saito Y, Tominaga K, Yokoi K, Miyazawa N, Shimamura K.Division of Thoracic Disease, Tochigi Cancer Center, Japan. Fetch PMID: 1405112
• http://www.breastcancer-treatment.us/breast-cancer-treatments/alternative-breast-cancer-treatments/aussie-oncologists-criticize-chemotherapy.html
• [xiii] http://www.mercola.com/2003/nov/26/death_by_medicine.htm
• [xiv] BMJ 2000;321:531-535 http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/321/7260/531

About the Author...

Mark A. Sircus Ac., OMD, is director of the International Medical Veritas Association and, as senior editor, launched the first issue of the Medical Veritas Journal of Medicine. Dr. Sircus was trained in acupuncture and oriental medicine at the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Sante Fe, N.M., and in the School of Traditional Medicine of New England in Boston. He served at the Central Public Hospital of Pochutla, in México, and was awarded the title of doctor of oriental medicine for his work. One of the first nationally certified acupuncturists in the United States, he was persecuted by the medical board of New Hampshire in the early 1980s for practicing medicine (acupuncture) without a license. This led him to diversify his healing work into other areas especially counseling and psychology. Today, Dr. Sircus is spearheading a dramatically different medical organization dedicated to unifying the various disciplines in medicine with the goal of creating a new dawn in healthcare. Dr. Sircus is particularly concerned about the effect vaccinations have on vulnerable infants and is identifying the common thread of many toxic agents that are dramatically threatening present and future generations of children.