Steve Jobs may have chosen alternative treatments for too long, leading to his death.

[Lisa0825]

http://www.quora.com/Steve-Jobs/Why-did-Steve-Jobs-choose-not-to-effectively-treat-his-cancer

Interesting...

:hide:

Let me cut to the chase: Mr. Jobs allegedly chose to undergo all sorts of alternative treatment options before opting for conventional medicine.

This was, of course, a freedom he had all the rights to take, but given the circumstances it seems sound to assume that Mr. Jobs' choice for alternative medicine could have led to an unnecessarily early death.

Again, please understand that I have no knowledge of the specific case, I'm just trying to give insights on his a priori odds of cure. These are independent of his case and mere indicators that somehow his case turned for the worse when it statistically was improbable. What made this happen will remain in the domain of speculations. We're here to see if his therapeutic choices are possibly what made this happen.

[closeupready]

1. Oh, please. This Ramzi kid looks about 27 years old.

:eyes:

[Dawgs]

2. Not buying it. Most people with pancreatic cancer don't live for 8 years after being diagnosed.

Conventional medicine didn't help my Dad when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January. He only lived 6 more months.

[Lisa0825]

4. Read the article - it was not typical "pancreatic cancer."

"Neuroendocrine tumors are far less deadly than "ordinary" pancreatic cancer.

The big confusion in the media is that Jobs had pancreatic cancer. Though his tumor might have originated in his pancreas, we're not speaking of the dreaded pancreatic adenocarcinoma that has such a horrible prognosis and makes up for 95% of pancreatic tumors.

Jobs is cited to have said himself that he had an islet-cell tumor, which is a colloquially used, less accurate name for the other 5% of pancreatic tumors, so-called neuroendocrine tumors. "

[cleanhippie]

11. You know, when you post facts like that, you make others look unreasonable.

Damn facts. Such pesky things. Always invalidating anecdotal experiences.

[Sanity Claws]

7. That's my reaction too

Not only was it 8 years, they were good quality years.

[otohara]

3. His Choice

I'd do the same.

[lbrtbell]

5. I support alternative medicine, but....

You don't screw with cancer. I'd take the allopathic route in a heartbeat.

[Iwasthere]

8. True, you shouldn't screw with cancer

... chemo, prime example. Chemo kills!!! We are using 100 year old methods to combat cancer, good doctors are blinded, Big Pharma owns them. The cures are hidden from the public, YES there are cures, go to http://chrisbeatcancer.com Chemo opens up the body to many other cancers (Lance Armstrong is NOT a poster child for chemo, he was cured in germany with heat therapy). True cures involve diet primarily, period! WAKE UP! I have lost many friends and family, they put all their faith in the docs hands with disastrous results :(

[Confusious]

13. 100 years ago if you had any form of cancer

you were dead.

100 years ago we didn't even have antibiotics. 100 years ago, no radiation therapy.

Lance Armstrong had chemo and radiation.

seriously, learn some history. Since you're pushing crap cures, you probably won't.

[MineralMan]

17. -100 Very bad advice, based on nothing scientific at all. nt

[HuckleB]

20. Hogwash.

It's the "chemo kills" people who are trying to kill people.

Ugh.

[BuddhaGirl]

16. Chemo - the allopathic route - killed my father-in-law

n/t

[tinrobot]

19. I had a friend who did the same.

Instead of getting a kidney tumor removed, he did Chinese herbs and other forms of eastern medicine. The tumor went away for about a year, then came back. He had the kidney removed, but the cancer had also metastasized in his brain. He was dead at 43.

If I ever have a tumor - I will get it removed, then do alternative medicine later.

[Catbird]

6. Birth leads to death

Our choices may change the path but not the destination.

[Lisa0825]

9. True, but I prefer to take the very long, scenic route, not the express train. nt

[otohara]

10. Long & Scenic Sometimes Costs A Fortune

many go bankrupt.

I will embrace the inevitable, if it means bankrupting my family.

[Lisa0825]

12. Yes, but avoiding conventional treatment for two years can cost even more...

because by then the cancer is much worse, whereas the original cancer could have been treated pretty simply.

"Neuroendocrine tumors caught in time can be treated just by surgically removing the tumor.

This is a relatively low-risk treatment that -- especially compared to chemo and radiation -- has negligible disadvantages. In many cases, a simple enucleation (just cutting out the tumor with a safe margin around it) is enough and leaves no residual side-effects."

[lunasun]

14. sez who??

......that all the details on Jobs' specific case are based on secondary sources, albeit from reliable sources in the media. I write this on a personal title, I do not pretend to know anything about the case on a personal level and I never participated in the care of Mr. Jobs

ok then!

[Lisa0825]

15. That being said, he is a doctor who has researched that kind of tumor

and knows the probabilities. So it is not like your average person on the street with an opinion.

[Celebration]

18. wow, talk about speculation

and from a comment someone made

http://www.quora.com/Steve-Jobs/Why-did-Steve-Jobs-choose-not-to-effectively-treat-his-cancer

While Jobs probably did not help himself by waiting nine months between diagnosis and surgery, it can often take years before neuroendocrine tumors are diagnosed even when symptoms of "active" tumors are present, (see the Journal of the National Cancer Institute 9/17 2008) so the ultimate effect of the delay in treatment on his survival is academic. The one thing that is absolutely clear about his case is that when his surgeons told him that they "got it all" in 2004, they were wrong. This monumentally bad advice is not unusual among those with neuroendocrine tumors. I know dozens of others who have been given the same erroneous post-surgical assessment.

What we are unlikely to know is whether the surgeons who operated on Mr. Jobs performed a simple test (called KI-67) on the tissue they removed, it would have told them - and presumably Jobs - how aggressive his tumor was. While Mr. Jobs was clear that no chemo or radiation was required after his first surgery, it is unclear what if any follow-up monitoring - blood tests - scans Mr. Jobs was advised to undergo. As someone who has been fighting a neuroendocrine tumor since 1999, I know that monitoring the progress of my disease has been crucial to combatting it and has helped me survive for over 12 years. In that light, Jobs' delay in treatment before he had surgery might not have had as great an impact on his health as what he was apparently advised to do and more importantly, not to do, by his doctors after he was operated on.