CANCER IS A WORD NOT A SENTENCE WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CANCER DR ROBERT BUCKMAN Princess Margaret Hospital, University of Toronto

What You Really Need to Know About the Cancers This cannot be happening to me

What You Really Need to Know About the Cancers Fear often produces a sense of paralysis, with diminished coping strategies Fear of the generalities may inhibit comprehension and coping with the specifics

What You Really Need to Know About the Cancers Why are we SO afraid of cancer? Why is the word so dreaded and awful even when the sentence is light?

What You Really Need to Know About the Cancers ‘Cancer’ is not one single disease The cancers comprise a group of 200 diseases The 200 different diseases have the same process in common(and often nothing else) There is a wide spectrum of prognosis Understanding palliates paralysis

What You Really Need to Know About the Cancers Why ‘alien’ invasion If perceived as single disease, that disease is clever and highly unpredictable Primeval fear of something growing inside

What You Really Need to Know About the Cancers “It used to be rare....” Cancers account for 25% of all deaths Not talked about before (epidemic of silence-breaking, not disease) Most cancers are not inherited (very few ‘doomed families’)

What You Really Need to Know About the Cancers Mysteries: Site of metastases Angiogenesis Markers of biological behaviour Effect of removal of primary

What You Really Need to Know About the Cancers Cancer as metaphor Attitude as a cause Attitude as predictor of survival Part of “blaming the patient’

What You Really Need to Know About the Cancers “Why is the treatment so awful?” Cancer cells differ minimally from normal Systemic treatment targets all growing cells

What You Really Need to Know About the Cancers “With so many breakthroughs, how come there’s no progress?” Advances in understanding not the same as progress in treatment Collaborative optimism Public relations

What You Really Need to Know About the Cancers Complementary remedies: Difference between getting better and feeling better “Not what you do, but how you do it”

What You Really Need to Know About the Cancers “ the more you understand about something you are afraid of, the easier it is to cope with it ”

What You Really Need to Know About the Cancers For more information on the books “CANCER IS A WORD NOT A SENTENCE” and “WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CANCER” (Both published by Key Porter books) you can visit : cinemedic.com