Talk:Treatment of cancer

WikiProject Medicine / Hematology-oncology

(Rated Start-class, Mid-importance)

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Medicine, which recommends that medicine-related articles follow the Manual of Style for medicine-related articles and that biomedical information in any article use high-quality medical sources. Please visit the project page for details or ask questions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine.MedicineWikipedia:WikiProject MedicineTemplate:WikiProject Medicinemedicine articles Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.  Mid  This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by the Hematology-oncology task force.

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 January 2021 and 29 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Weepyposse.

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): KungFuTerminator, Paulbaker1992.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:41, 17 January 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ksande15.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:41, 17 January 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 January 2019 and 27 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mossmh.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:41, 17 January 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 January 2021 and 29 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Weepyposse.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:41, 17 January 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

First, kudos to Doc James for splitting this article off of cancer, something I recommended doing a while back. However, I would prefer "Cancer treatment" to "Management of cancer" for the article title, since "management" seems too broad for a page that is concerned with treatment strategies. Management can refer to both treatment options as well as palliative and supportive care (see). I think "Cancer treatment" would be more appropriate for this article, especially considering that the word 'treatment' appears five times in the lead of that article, while 'management' is conspicuously absent. Any objections to renaming that article "Cancer treatment"? SteveChervitzTrutane (talk) 09:05, 5 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Reconsidering, since the article does have a Symptom control section. Perhaps what is needed is to rework the lead to incorporate "management," expanding beyond a description of treatments. SteveChervitzTrutane (talk) 09:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I feel that this article should be renamed Cancer treatment as well, both because I feel the sources in this article probably refer to "cancer treatment" rather than "cancer management", and because the term "Management of cancer" encourages the idea of cancer being a chronic illness, which I do not feelit is, based on both the fact that some malignancies (like testicular or thyroid cancer) are very curable, and because some malignancies (such as Brain stem glioma) have a rapidly progressive course that could not be considered chronic. Immunize (talk) 20:40, 13 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I named it management to keep the scope large. Most malignant tumors are not curable and thus palliative care is often required. This is done even if it kill you in 3-9 months. The curable ones are the minoraty rather than the majority. Cancer does end up killing about 30% of people in the first world. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:44, 13 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

So, do you support or oppose renaming the article. From your comment above it sounds like you oppose it. Immunize (talk) 20:46, 13 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I oppose renaming it.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:52, 18 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Changed my position in the last 6 years. Happy with either. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:07, 5 August 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thank you formaking that clear. I feel tha this is article is poor, particulary for an article on such an important topic, and would like to see overall expansion, cleanup, and more references. Immunize (talk) 00:29, 20 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

In fact, there are no references in the surgery, radition, or symptom control sections of the article, so I will insert a refimprove tag. Immunize (talk) 00:33, 20 March 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think that 'management' is such a poor word choice for this topic. Google search with quotes shows cancer treatment is order of the magnitude more common phrase. Why introduce economic term into medical topic? 178.223.31.74 (talk) 00:35, 27 March 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

How come there is no mention of the use of cannabinoids. There is massive amounts of anecdotal evidence that supports the positive effects on people experiencing negative symptoms like nausea, lack of appetite, and pain. However because its a schedule 1 substance there are very few trials testing its efficiency. Iscream22 (talk) 16:07, 17 March 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm not qualified to add the section, but I think there should be mention of Nanoshells and how they can be used to treat cancer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoshells#Cancer_Treatment

JohnCarterWarlordOfMars (talk) 03:01, 9 February 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The following consists of grammatical errors, express an opinion, and is not sourced:

Clarification, safe cancer surgery should ONLY be attempted with the use of a laser scalpel. Using conventional metal blade scapels is a serious risk to the spread of cancer through the blood. Sadly, in the USA the risk of lawsuits against surgeons has resulted in resistance to adopt newer, and lifesaving technologies. Therefore anybody contemplating surgery should consider going outside the USA, to locations like Japan, and Germany for example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.135.96.7 (talk) 01:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Differentiation therapy might also be added to the list, mentioned in many papers in PubMed --Bouncingball2^talk 01:25, 14 January 2012 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I think as long as this page has cancer immunotherapy on it then Oncolytic viruses also deserves a mention. They are fields at similar stages of development. I tried to add it already but it came across as too promotional and was removed. Any thoughts? Viraltonic (talk) 02:07, 24 March 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

We are limited by policies and guidelines in what we can say in health-related articles. Most importantly, any claims with safety or efficacy implications must be supported by a certain class of reliable source. We call these "secondary sources", and they include independent expert scholarly reviews published in highly regarded peer reviewed journals, graduate-level textbooks from publishers with a reputation for good scholarship, and position statements from national and international specialist associations. The relevant guideline is Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine). --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:49, 24 March 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

So with appropriate referencing it would be a suitable addition to this page? There are several textbooks and plenty of academic reviews available as described in the main oncolytic virus page Viraltonic (talk) 17:00, 24 March 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This for example:

An oncolytic virus is a virus that infects and kills cancer cells without damaging healthy tissue. As the cancer cells are destroyed by lysis, they release new infectious virus particles to help destroy the remaining tumour. Oncolytic viruses have great potential for cancer therapy, not only by direct destruction of the tumour cells, but also to deliver other genes, for example genes expressing anticancer proteins and as immunotherapy. Reported side effects are rare, with clinical responses seen in very advanced and rapidly growing cancers.

Viraltonic (talk) 17:26, 24 March 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

First (book) ref needs a page number. I would be wary of making an assertion that the class of therapeutics does not damage healthy tissue. that may be the intent, but that is a factual claim that should be supported or not on a per-therapeutic-entity basis.

The language generally needs some work, i think. It still has too promotional a tone in my opinion; it seems to be presenting speculation as fact. Saying something to the effect of "they seem to have few side effects" when the research is still quite new, and there are few therapeutics that are approved for use in humans, seems to be to be overreaching. Looking at a few of the papers, this seems to be a general problem with the proposed paragraph. My suggestion would be to tighten up the language a bit more. I do appreciate your focus on using PMC references, I think that is important for our readership. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ] # _ 17:45, 24 March 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Viraltonic, I don't have time at the moment to look at the case for inclusion, I just want you to be equipped with the relevant policies, so you and the editors you deal with here are on the same page. The other essential policy to grasp is Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Per that policy, editors have to assess the appropriate amount of weight to give each element of a topic, and sometimes even well-sourced facts are not appropriate for an encyclopedia article. Highly-speculative ideas, therapies that haven't made it into clinical practice, etc., if they are supported by excellent sources, are sometimes more suitable for "daughter" or "sister" articles. Again, this is not a comment on the merits of your proposed addition, just some background on the norms here. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:11, 24 March 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks for your input, I think that it is probably not worth inclusion at the moment, I will instead look at describing it in experimental cancer treatment as that is more suited to this article at this point in time. I may return when the results of the current phase III trials are announced Viraltonic (talk) 19:28, 24 March 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

If I correctly understand, the intervention being discussed in the recent edits and reversions might fall better under chimeric antigen receptor. I've suggested an update source there (from a recent review), but I'm not sufficiently confident that I'd interpret it correctly. Someone care to take a look?LeadSongDog come howl! 02:58, 24 June 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

A request has been made for peer review of List of ineffective cancer treatments (in some ways the "opposite" of this article). All and any feedback most welcome. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 08:23, 19 September 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User:Bonojo is insiting on adding Burzynski Antineoplaston_therapy to this article, copied from Burzynski Clinic. The American Cancer Society says that there is no convincing evidence showing that antineoplastons actually work(1). It therefore should not be included in the article. Ochiwar (talk) 16:39, 24 November 2014 (UTC) Besides, the therapy in question already exists under Alternative cancer treatments#Ineffective treatments. Ochiwar (talk) 18:12, 24 November 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Oxygen Therapy

Biochemist Otto Heinrich Warburg, one of the twentieth century's leading cell biologists, discovered that the root cause of cancer is too much acidity in the body, meaning that the pH, potential hydrogen, in the body is below the normal level of 7.365, due to lactic acid production and elevated CO2 and therefore lower concentrations of oxygen in the body cells. Dr. Warburg made it clear that the root cause of cancer is oxygen deficiency in body cells (lack of oxygen results in acidic state in the human body). "All normal cells have an absolute requirement for oxygen, but cancer cells can live without oxygen - a rule without exception. Deprive a cell 35% of its oxygen for 48 hours and it may become cancerous." According to his research findings, applying methods that can increase oxygen levels in the body cells and also in the blood, can limit growth of cancer cells, and increase the rate of normal cells production in the body, which controls/cures cancer as a result. If there is lack of good level of oxygen in body cells (the main root cause of cancer), other cancer treatment methods will not work long-term, and although tumors can be removed, but they would grow again.

Diet plays an important role in controlling the oxygen level in the body cells: - Cancer can by controlled by increase in intake of some of the healthy foods that increase oxygen levels in the blood (natural fruits and vegetables, olive, almond, etc) can reduce body acidity and limit cancer cells growth - Cancer can become more serious and go out of control when intake of some unhealthy foods are increased: such as cheese, factory farmed meat (in particular pork/ham), Liquor, Beer, Soft Drinks (pressurized with CO2), Chocolate and Sweetened drinks.

I've removed this paragraph, because it was unsourced and I have some serious doubts about whether it's factually accurate too. The Warburg hypothesis is a legit concept but this here is fringey. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:18, 19 June 2015 (UTC)Reply[reply]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YJSfsCD3LY

Is this an experimental treatment, alternative treatment or a real treatment? Why cant I find any mentioned of this anywhere within wikipedia?

Seb-Gibbs (talk) 23:20, 30 April 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Please post much more reliable links than only YOUTUBE videos. It is much easier to verify claims from text than video. 91.155.24.127 (talk) 10:55, 14 September 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

A company out of Israel has claimed to have found a "cure" to all forums of cancer. When should we start to consider adding this to the Management section? The claims have been proven to be legitimate though the drug have not gone through test trials yet. This could be a major development in cancer care. I believe in good faith that we should start to discuss when this should be added.BMO4744 (talk) 14:16, 30 January 2019 (UTC)–Reply[reply]

Where have the claims been proven legitimate? Natureium (talk) 14:50, 30 January 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm not convinced this section is appropriate for this article, though I'm not sure I can necessarily articulate why in policy terms. However, it is certainly completely US centric at the moment, and it seems to fail WP:MEDRS by exclusively citing original research, and formulating conclusions/synthesis in the article. I may well be misinterpreting things, so happy to be corrected, but am interested in others' thoughts. Beevil (talk) 11:50, 20 May 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

As a contributor to this page for a college writing class, I intend to add a few new sections on more molecular-based cancer therapies based on research of scholarly literature reviews in the field. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Imm19 (talk • contribs) 17:12, 31 October 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Good, so long as the sources meet WP:MEDRS and the material can be made understandable to a non-expert reader. Alexbrn (talk) 17:14, 31 October 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've realized that the research I've gathered for my writing class is better suited to the Molecular Oncology page so I'll be working on that page from now on. Imm19 (talk) 17:49, 14 November 2019 (UTC)User:Imm19Imm19 (talk) 17:49, 14 November 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The category includes the following types:

• Alternative cancer treatments‎
• Antineoplastic drugs‎
• Cancer hormone therapy‎
• Cancer immunotherapy‎
• Chemotherapy‎
• Experimental cancer treatments‎
• Oncothermia‎
• Radiation therapy‎
• Surgical oncology‎
• Targeted therapy‎
• Cancer vaccines‎

Shouldn't the article and the category match? Lfstevens (talk) 01:05, 13 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Please update the section with info from/about these or some of these studies / their researched categories of experimental treatments. They are currently included in 2022 in science like so:

Progress in the treatment of cancer:
A very small trial shows complete remission of a type of colorectal cancer without surgery and radiation in all 12 patients. On the same day, results of a trial show that trastuzumab deruxtecan therapy for HER2-low metastatic breast cancer exceeded results from chemotherapy. The synthesis of ERX-41, a novel compound that has shown promise in eliminating cancer cells, is reported (2 June). Researchers describe a new light-activated 'photoimmunotherapy' for brain cancer in vitro. They believe it could join surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy as a fifth major form of cancer treatment (16 June).

• There's probably also quite a few other types / categories of treatments described/demonstrated to notable level in trials/studies that are missing.

• The top of the section section could also have some more info about how, who, where, to what extent, by what means and why such treatments are studied – for example how it's funded, the needs/motivations for doing so, metascience identified problems & open questions such as reproducibility issues, 21st Century Cures Act#Medical research and diagrams (maybe via Scholia or OpenAlex). This could all go into a new subsection.

• Please also see my related & similar proposal at Talk:Cancer biomarker#Please update with info on new biomarkers

• I'd suggest some publicly-funded non-profit independent cancer-related organization/researcher (e.g. NHS, WHO, NCI, EORTC, etc) gets tasked with non-authoritatively (very independently) updating, maintaining and cleaning the article but other people could do this (instead of only additionally) too.

• It is missing info on useful/efficacious/potentially efficacious sometimes well-researched options of "Complementary and alternative treatments". If they are only useful in combination and/or in combination with more conventional/more intensive treatments they can be informed about in this section. This could include (various ultimately specific applications of) AMPK and cancer, and Diet and cancer.

• The article should probably get far more views from people interested in this which I think are far more than the ~4000 per month currently reading the article. Not sure how it would be achieved, maybe increasing the quality of the article makes it more visible to search engines. It may also require good redirects, wikilinks from other articles like Cancer, and so on instead or additionally too.

• Maybe transcluding the first paragraph of most sections of Experimental cancer treatment would be a good solution here, at least it would be good to not leave out various specific experimental treatments instead of at least naming them and not to have relatively excessive details on some other specific treatments. Short sections for the most advanced treatments in research and bullet-point list of the remaining ones would be the solution I think would be best.

Please comment what you think below. I also posted about this at Talk:Experimental cancer treatment.

Prototyperspective (talk) 14:48, 3 August 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 August 2022 and 9 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Estehman.

— Assignment last updated by Estehman (talk) 15:20, 21 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 31 August 2022 and 16 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Anoshah04. Peer reviewers: SandersKathryn, Stephkow1029, Jand1990, Avengers2015, Kkio77, Sprygrocki.

— Assignment last updated by Stephkow1029 (talk) 17:28, 29 November 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 January 2023 and 5 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jaclure. Peer reviewers: Cbshealy13, Liviaamurphy444, Wmquinn.

— Assignment last updated by Jessicacariello (talk) 14:56, 14 February 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]