None of the 'standard of care' therapies for, in our case, ovarian cancer are guaranteed to be effective...they simply have hazard ratios that are more favorable than the rest. So, quite literally, doctors are already guessing as to what to do next once you are in a recurrent cancer setting (even before, really).
On top of that there is a mountain of clinical evidence that high dose intravenous vitamin C (IVC) has an incredibly low risk of adverse events in healthy patients and there have been clinical trials and case studies indicating that it improves quality of life in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Evidence that IVC actually has a therapeutic benefit in killing cancer is starting to emerge, but definitely needs work to meet the standard of testing that is generally mandated for something to become standard of care.
So now we're in this weird local minima of scientific interest in a potential therapy. Nobody that I've seen is seriously suggesting that IVC is an effective monotherapy against any kind of cancer. But there is growing evidence that it is a safe and effective adjunct therapy to increase quality of life and potential outcomes for many patients. Unfortunately, clinical trials are expensive and most oncology teams are not interested in results that haven't specifically tested the cancer that they specialize in. So you are left with waiting for someone to explore the enormous graph of specific cancer treatment settings and apply this trial. In other words, it's not coming to a theater near you any time soon.
Meanwhile people are dying because the current treatments are not working, and finding a doctor with the guts to explore these options with a willing and educated patient is, in my personal experience, next to impossible.
This quite reasonably makes most doctors very cautious during the process. To the point where significant studies on exercise have been done to verify it’s still safe.
An extreme example would be if a suicidal patient asked their therapist to put a bullet in their head rather than give them an antidepressant, should the patient be free to ask for this and should the therapist be obligated to fulfill this request? It's a question of what is ethical and that goes beyond your own agency. You are free to put a bullet in your own head, or find your own source of vitamin C, but you can't put that ethical dilemma on the doctor and expect a result.
Cancer may feel like a sentient adversary at times, but it’s just genetic instability (volatility?) combined with suppressed apoptosis, self-sustaining growth/replication signaling, immune evasion and angiogenesis to sustain large populations.
This results in an evolutionarily supercharged population of non-functional cells that out-compete normal cells until a major system is disrupted. The nature of a specific cancer cell is going to be informed by the primary source, so while they frequently share characteristics they aren’t the same and don’t generally respond to the same treatments. Saying that eating fruit and elevating blood pH is going to make them all go away is pretty absurd...it didn’t work out for Steve Jobs. Even if the pH thing was generally true, the tumor microenvironment would quickly adapt to foster a locally acidic pH.
IMHO an assisted human immune system will be the ultimate answer to cancer.
I do agree that biopsies of encapsulated tumors are a terrible idea. But once the cat is out of the proverbial bag in stage III/IV think they are useful.
I have been involved in natural healing for over 30 years. I have seen countless people cure cancer. I know this is not something HN crowd welcomes, and that is unfortunate. Cancer has been solved a long long time ago. Grape fasting, aronia fasting, combined with periods of dry fasting + specific herbs + kidney glandulars can heal pretty much every disease known to man. Cancer included.
Chemo is barbaric, but it has kept people alive.
If they have data on different therapies, they are not guessing. The data might not be perfect, but it's all we have, so it guides clinical decisions.
On top of that there is a mountain of clinical evidence that high dose intravenous vitamin C (IVC) has an incredibly low risk of adverse events in healthy patients and there have been clinical trials and case studies indicating that it improves quality of life in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.
I think we have different definitions of "mountain of clinical evidence". There is more data to back up the standard of care than the use of vitamin C.
I'm sorry but there are cases where they are definitely guessing and will sometimes admit as much. It's an educated guess but if you ask a doc to, for example, strongly justify why they selected one of the three approved PARP inhibitors for an ovarian cancer therapy, you're going to see a little of that uncertainty in living color.
The burden is on the patient to be their own advocate and parse through the various opinions (and their own research) to decide on the best treatment choices, with the assistance and guidance of the experts. Because despite them being experts, they have insufficient time to research and understand all of factors that are applicable to an individual's situation. (For example, in at least one matter, I proposed a significant change to the treatment plan and my oncologist agreed with the underlying logic and we made the change. Had I not mentioned it, it wouldn't have happened.)
It seems like there are a few bounds within which a doctor, and the healthcare system (including insurance companies), are prepared/allowed to vary treatment. I imagine some patients, especially those with potentially terminal conditions, are interested in treatment options that fall outside of those bounds.
(Perhaps if one's cancer follows one of the most normal/common paths, then blindly following standard of care is sufficiently wise. I'm not sure how often this is the case, but my impression is that there is great variation even within cancers of the same general type.)
To be sure, it would take a non-trivial time investment on their part. However, many doctors (though not all) seem entirely blind to anything they are not familiar with already, even if there would be reasonable scientific basis. There can be a level of pride there.