Lymph Node Removal for Breast Cancer is Useless and Harmful

Surgical removal of lymph nodes and lymph vessels as part of standard medical procedure for breast cancer patients is not just useless, but also harmful, according to a new study published in The journal of the American Medical Association [JAMA. 2011;305(6):569-575.doi:10.1001/jama.2011.90]

In this groundbreaking study, The American College of Surgeons Oncology Group Z0011 trial, 115 medical centers followed 891 women with early breast cancer and looked at the benefits of lymph node removal. The participants’ median age was in the mid-50s, and they were followed for a median of 6.3 years.

The study found that in those women who had breast cancer that had spread to the lymph nodes, the removal of the nodes not only failed to increase their survival rate, but also fueled their chances of suffering serious harm. In fact, women in the study who had nodes removed experienced a 70 percent increase in complications compared with a 25 percent increase in women who did not. Such complications included infections, pain sensations and lymph edema.

What’s astounding to the medical community, the researchers discovered that lymph node removal did not prevent the further spread of cancer to other lymph nodes. This clearly defies the hypothesis that lymph nodes harboring cancer cells are responsible for metastasis (spreading of cancer). In my book, Cancer is not a Disease, I actually claim that metastasis of cancer is a myth that has no scientific basis to it.
This is the rationale behind common medical belief: “By removing a lymph node that contains cancer cells, these cells can no longer spread to other lymph nodes, or reach other parts of the body. Thus, the practice of removing lymph nodes is a reliable and effective preventive method against cancer metastasis.” This sounds logical and reasonable to most medical doctors and their patients. However, the theory only makes sense if you also believe that cancer cells move around to infect other cells and make them cancerous, too. But, of course, this is just another hypothesis that lacks scientific backing.

As the above study clearly proves, the cutting out of lymph nodes that contain cancerous cells does nothing to prevent cancer from spreading. What we must therefore conclude from this research is that cancer does not spread from one place to another.
To follow medical logic, if you remove the lymph nodes along with the cancer cells, cancer cells can no longer spread or return because they are all gone. Without the pathways, lymph nodes and lymph vessels, cancer remains contained, or so the theory goes. However, what oncologists don’t want to admit is that new cancer cells don’t spread, but instead grow in different places in the body for the same reasons the original cancer developed. Bottom line, the current cancer theory has to be rewritten. In addition, cutting out lymph vessels should be ruled intentional medical malpractice.
This medical procedure has been a standard ‘medical’ practice for 100 years, although there has actually never been a clinical study to support it. Mainstream medicine is increasingly seen for its quackery practices, where a lot of money is being made from unsuspecting people who fear for their lives and willingly submit to such radical treatments.

I have always spoken out against removing those vitally important parts of the body’s detoxification and waste removal system, which includes lymph vessels and lymph nodes. Breast cancer patients, especially, depend on an intact lymphatic system. And so I feel very encouraged today by this team of researchers who had the courage to conduct such an important study and openly expose one of the oldest and cruelest medical procedures as a scam.
With no difference in rate of survival or recurrence, removing lymph nodes is NOT justified. Study authors, Dr. Grant Walter Carlson and Dr. William C. Wood, stated that the research conducted "definitively showed that auxiliary lymph node dissection is not beneficial."

Furthermore, "survival was independent of lymph node status," said the study authors. Why take women through such a taxing ordeal when there is no survival benefit?
"This is such a radical change in thought that it's been hard for many people to get their heads around it," reported another study author, Dr. Monica Morrow, Chief of the Breast Service at Sloan-Kettering.

In spite of the new scientific evidence, medical centers, hospitals and doctors who either don’t know about this research or choose to ignore it for reasons of financial gain, will continue to rip out women’s axillary lymph nodes. In fact, some prominent institutions wouldn't even take part in (the study), according to the authors. Surgeons particularly hope the ‘bad’ news (that lymph node surgery is unnecessary and harmful) will just goes away in time, as it often does in the medical industry. Besides, the mainstream media didn’t even report about this important study.

Women who had their axillary lymph nodes removed are more likely to suffer from a host of new health problems in the future. What’s worse, the chance for a real cure of their cancer is greatly reduced and a recurrence of cancer is more likely, because of it.

"Taken together, findings from these (and other) investigators provide strong evidence that patients undergoing partial mastectomy, whole-breast irradiation, and systemic therapy for early breast cancer with microscopic sentinel lymph node metastasis can be treated effectively and safely without axillary node dissection," the researchers said.

The author of an editorial accompanying the study, Dr. Grant W. Carlson, professor of surgery at Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University bluntly said: "I have a feeling we've been doing a lot of harm (by routinely taking out many nodes)." But since not many doctors and patients pay attention to this admission by the good doctor, the “war on cancer patients” will continue with full force.

Source: http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/305/6/606.short

Copyright © 2011 by Andreas Moritz
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