A generation ago, if a cancer had spread to someone’s liver, it was considered a death sentence. Today, that is no longer the case. In our hospital, nearly half of patients who undergo an operation to remove tumours from the liver, are still alive five years later. The huge shift has come about because of […]
Tiny gas bubbles could hold the key to reducing the risks associated with ultrasound guided needle biopsies, routinely used to diagnose many types of cancer, including breast cancer and prostate cancer. At the moment, in a small number of cases, the procedures can sometimes dislodge cancer cells, which may then spread to other locations around the body. This can cause […]
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As a medical oncologist treating pancreatic, liver, gall bladder and colon cancer with chemotherapy, I try to extend patients’ lives and maintain a decent quality of life. Patients understandably ask me, ‘with all the talk of advances of cancer treatments in the media why can’t chemotherapy cure cancer?’ Can chemotherapy cure cancer then? Yes it […]
I know that the breast cancer screening programme for the over 50s saves lives. When I started working in Breast Clinics at King’s College Hospital in the 1980s, it was common to see female patients for the first time with advanced cancer and tumours that were already destroying skin and breast tissue. Now, that is […]
Back in 1998, in all good faith, I set up the service for the NHS Breast Screening Programme. Since then, I have become one of the most vociferous proponents for closing it down. You probably want to know why I changed my mind so completely. At the heart of this is the question, how do […]
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Magic rays that cure all cancers or expensive vanity projects of no real clinical value? That has been the argument up to now when it comes to proton beam therapy for cancer. However, I believe the argument is pretty much won now, not least because Aysha King, 6, who underwent proton beam therapy in Prague […]
Read More… from The Proton Controversy – The legacy of Aysha King
We would all like to see the end of terminal cancer. A non-survivable brain cancer killed my mother in a few short weeks. Last month, I said goodbye to a friend who died of a rare kind of blood cancer when she was just 55. Another friend has been diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, […]
I don’t have any intrinsic objection to robotic prostatectomy – in fact I’m trained in it, just as I’m trained in open and laparoscopic (‘hands on’ keyhole) prostate surgery. The cause of my reticence towards robotic surgery relates more to unnecessary cost and unrealistic expectations than to anything else. The steep growth of robotic prostatectomy […]
In my view, robotic surgery is superior to an open radical prostatectomy. For one thing, you get a much better view of the pelvis with a robotic prostatectomy and there is less bleeding. There is also less damage to surrounding tissues and a quicker recovery time. I advise men that it is important to ask […]
The latest issue of Cancer World, the bi-monthly magazine published by the European School of Oncology, features a ‘sting’ carried out by German journalists highlighting the misguided or even dangerous advice given to cancer patients by alternative healers. There is an assumption, often mentioned in the media, that many patients spurn conventional surgery and medicine […]