Under What Circumstances Is Pure Conservative TCM Treatment More Appropriate for Cancer?
Opinions on the choice of cancer treatment regimens are divided, and it is hard to reach a consensus. Personally, I lean toward combined Chinese-Western treatment, because the probability of success is highest with combined therapy. But there is a subset of cancer patients for whom only pure Chinese medicine conservative treatment is appropriate. I personally lean toward pure conservative TCM treatment for the following categories of cancer patients.
First, elderly late-stage cancer patients, especially late-stage tumor patients over seventy. After undergoing invasive treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, their bodies can hardly recover. Rushing into surgery can cause a sharp post-operative decline; biologically, the elderly are already in a stage of natural bodily decline, and the chance of tissue regrowth is relatively small. For them, surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy are more loss than gain. At such a time, pure Chinese medicine treatment or symptomatic combined Chinese-Western treatment may actually yield longer survival and better quality of life, because in elderly cancer patients the tumor does not progress as fast as in younger patients. Many elderly patients, as long as their possible cancer complications are controlled, can survive three to five years or even ten years or more. I have seen many such cases.
However, when younger patients face the same situation, they cannot simply copy the elderly's experience, because younger patients' tumors progress faster. Moreover, younger cancer patients also recover faster after surgery, radiotherapy, or chemotherapy; after all, the success rate of Chinese medicine in treating cancer is still too low. It is therefore very necessary to resort to Western surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy; if, while undergoing surgery and chemoradiotherapy, they also find a good Chinese medicine doctor to support and regulate the body, the probability of success will be even higher.
The second category of patients for whom pure Chinese medicine treatment should be considered are those whose tumors are unresponsive to all Western therapies. Such patients, if treated by Western medicine, waste both money and their bodies. Regardless of age, they should decisively give up ineffective, overly invasive treatment, conserve their strength, and buy Chinese medicine a bit more chance of success. If the patient repeatedly depletes their body until their strength fails, the success rate of Chinese medicine treatment will also drop sharply.
TCM treatment of cancer is not without possibility of success. In fact, over the thousands of years since cancer became known to the Chinese, there have been plenty of cancer patients treated successfully with pure Chinese medicine. The reason Chinese medicine can win these patients a slim chance of survival is closely tied to their still having sufficient physical strength. If, after repeated traumatic treatments, the patient is already depleted and only then seeks Chinese medicine, the chance of a miracle becomes minuscule. Most TCM physicians also dread taking on such patients, because the probability of treatment failure and of triggering a medical accident is too high, and the treatment risk is too great.
The third category of cancer patients suited to pure Chinese medicine treatment are those with limited financial means. To be honest, from an economic standpoint, such patients will also live longer if they choose Chinese medicine. Cancer treatment is not a one-time affair; it often requires repeated treatment, long courses, and heavy expense. If the money is spent entirely at the start, then when continued treatment is needed and there is no money left, one can only watch the condition progress helplessly.
The reason some rural cancer patients live relatively long lives is tied to their inability to afford exorbitant treatment costs. As far as I know, many elderly patients in my hometown, after being diagnosed with cancer, forgo Western treatment and seek out only locally well-regarded Chinese medicine practitioners. Their average survival may not match that of urban cancer patients in developed cities like Beijing or Shanghai, but their post-diagnostic survival and quality of life are still acceptable.
The relatively low cost of Chinese medicine treatment is an important guarantee of their longer survival. If they had also chosen Western treatment regimens, their families would long since have been unable to bear the cost; later treatment would then have been a matter of resigning to fate, and the outcome would have been even more miserable.