Why Cancer Patients Should Avoid Massage and Hot Compresses
Professor Zhang Renji, in Chapter 4 (“The Natural Course of Cancer”) of his book A New Approach to Treating Cancer with Chinese Medicine (Science and Technology Literature Press, August 1992), states: “Certain physical factors can also promote tumor metastasis, such as excessive massage of a tumor, puncture, compression, drug injection, aspiration, and so on. The occurrence of tumor metastasis is often one of the important causes of death; therefore, controlling metastasis has practical significance in prolonging patient survival.” (See p. 24 of that book.)Professor Zhang Renji studied Western medicine in his early years at the Medical Department of Peking University, then went to Japan for further study. After returning to China he developed nonspecific enteritis with incessant daily diarrhea. “A physician cannot cure himself”; he sought help from major hospitals in Beijing, including the most authoritative Peking Union Medical College Hospital, but none could cure him. Finally, Professor Shi Jinmo—one of Beijing’s four great famous physicians—cured him with three doses of Chinese medicine. Thereafter Zhang Renji became a disciple of Shi Jinmo, studied Chinese medicine, and eventually became a great anti-cancer expert learned in both traditions. He was proficient in both and devoted his later years to tumor research; his views are balanced and judicious.Why do I write this article? Because cancer patients often ask me whether they can receive massage. Recently, one patient with recurrent cancer even abandoned regular medical treatment specifically to undergo massage therapy. So I feel it necessary to popularize some science on this point.Malignant tumors are fatal because they not only grow without limit but also spread. Cancer spreads mainly through local invasion, lymphatic metastasis, hematogenous metastasis, and implantation/dissemination. Of these four common modes, massage is associated with at least three—local invasion, lymphatic metastasis, and hematogenous metastasis—and may even promote implantation dissemination of the tumor. That massage promotes cancer metastasis is beyond doubt; prolonged massage is especially harmful. Massage easily compresses the tumor or causes local injury, making smaller cancer foci break off from the primary lesion and disseminate elsewhere, increasing the risk of metastasis.Patients with middle- to late-stage cancer have not only the primary tumor but may also harbor multiple undetected metastases—some small metastases are hard for sophisticated modern equipment to detect, and even harder for a massage therapist to spot with the naked eye. Thus during massage, compressing the tumor occurs frequently. Once a tumor is compressed, small cancer foci break off from the primary site, infiltrate nearby tissue to form metastases, or enter the bloodstream to achieve distant metastasis.Usually such metastasis is not noticed immediately, because metastatic lesions develop from small to large; very small metastases cannot be detected by equipment. They gradually grow to a detectable size after developing for some time. Therefore, cancer patients who frequently receive massage face a high risk of metastasis.Can massage treat tumors? Evidence is insufficient; no large controlled study has confirmed that massage can treat tumors. But the harm of massage is obvious, so personally I oppose cancer patients using massage as treatment for their tumors.Some cancer patients have tumors palpable on the body surface (e.g., breast tumors, lymphomas, or thyroid tumors), and patients themselves often touch and pinch their tumors to judge whether they have grown or shrunk. Like massage, this behavior risks promoting cancer metastasis. Patients must resist the urge to frequently touch and pinch the tumor; periodic examination to determine tumor changes is the most scientific approach.The mechanism by which hot compresses promote cancer-focus metastasis is similar to that of massage. Hot compresses likewise easily injure the tumor, causing tumor tissue to detach; the detached small foci implant nearby or disseminate through the bloodstream to other organs, and those who frequently apply hot compresses face even higher risk.Therefore cancer patients should avoid these behaviors as much as possible, and not let ignorance of basic facts about cancer metastasis cause their condition to worsen.