Dear reader, As the season of giving approaches, we'd like to offer our readers a new way to experience the news every week – the Premium Report newsletter. The Premium section of the Epoch Times offers in-depth reports, all in a beautiful layout. Experience expertly designed articles, documentaries, infographics, and more.
Our editorial team digs deep to present you with facts that matter, providing a unique perspective on the issues shaping our world. | | Doing Nothing: An Unexpected and Possible Lifesaving Cancer 'Treatment' | Cancer treatments can undermine health. That's well understood, but now researchers better know when that cost just isn't worth it. | Advances in cancer testing and medical imaging have created the potential for a new approach to cancer—watchful waiting. (Alfred pasieka/Science photo library/Getty Images) | A cancer diagnosis can trigger terror or an instinctive battle response. The urge to do something—anything—can be overpowering. The urge to fight cancer aggressively fuels a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States. Millions undergo treatments with limited effectiveness, preferring action over the potentially more healthful option of "watchful waiting." This often overlooked approach involves careful monitoring of the patient's condition without active treatment until it becomes necessary. It's a strategic pause, grounded in evidence that some cancers, when caught early or found to be slow-growing, do not require immediate intervention. The watch-and-wait approach is advised for certain early-stage or slow-growing cancers where immediate treatment does not improve survival rates. This strategy is most common with prostate cancer but is also considered for breast, thyroid, and some blood cancers. Watchful waiting reduces the toll of unnecessary cancer treatments, both financially and in terms of patient suffering. While few currently choose this less invasive path, growing awareness of its benefits is gradually making its way into clinical practice and cancer strategies focused more on the patient than the disease. David Gay is one of the beneficiaries of this approach. | David Gay opted for watchful waiting when diagnosed with cancer. (Photo courtesy of David Gay) | In 2014, Mr. Gay faced his third biopsy results in the stark silence of a urologist's office. He was poised for a fight, resolute in his preemptive decision: "If it's cancer, it's coming out," he told The Epoch Times. Yet, when confronted with the reality of his diagnosis, his perspective changed. Heeding his doctor's counsel and with his family's support, he chose not to rush into surgery or radiation, but to opt for watchful waiting. Mr. Gay's decision reflects an emerging trend built on clearer insights about cancer prognosis and research that challenges the rush to conventional treatment. The Watchful Waiting Approach Active surveillance and watchful waiting offer personalized, conservative treatment paths. While the terms are often used interchangeably, the American Cancer Society differentiates between "active surveillance" and "watchful waiting." Active surveillance involves regular doctor visits, blood tests, and biopsies, while watchful waiting implies a more relaxed follow-up based on symptoms. "One of the reasons to think about active surveillance and delaying treatment is to prevent side effects, which almost always accompany treatment for cancer, including problems related to surgery," writes Stanford oncologist, Dr. Lidia Schapira for the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Reflecting a growing acceptance of less aggressive treatment options, active surveillance has more than doubled in U.S. urology practices for prostate cancer, rising from 26.5 percent in 2014 to 59.6 percent in 2021... | Subscribe to The Epoch Times to read the rest. Become a paying subscriber of The Epoch Times to get access to
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