A Deadly Cancer Myth

Feb. 26, 2007 — -- A recent article in the International Journal of Surgery has rekindled interest in the myth that surgery itself may have an adverse effect on cancer survival.

In this report, the "target" population is premenopausal African-American women with breast cancer.

The authors write that they have a theory that might provide a scientific basis for the myth.

It's not bad to have a theory. But when the theory regarding a myth becomes interpreted as a fact, the risk of harm to people at risk is substantially increased.

That could happen in this particular circumstance.

This myth was present back when I started my oncology practice over 30 years ago.

Back then, we didn't find cancer early. We didn't have mammograms. We didn't have CT scans, and we didn't have MRI machines.

If a patient had an abdominal mass, we frequently had to do an operation called an exploratory laparotomy to make the diagnosis. Not infrequently, these cancers were advanced at the time of surgery. The outlook was poor. This led to a myth that just opening up cancer patients could make the cancer worse.

The sad reality was that African-Americans were often impoverished. To a significant degree, this remains the situation today.

It has been well documented in study after study that treatment for many diseases, including cancer, has been unequal for many African-Americans.

The result was that African-Americans did -- and too frequently today, still do -- get diagnosed later in the course of the disease. That means they are not going to do as well as someone who has access to screening, has access to medical care and gets early treatment.

Yet, more recent research articles have confirmed that the "air makes cancer worse" myth persists, and in fact is more common that some might realize.

In 2005, in the International Journal of Surgery, researchers published a paper where they noted that premenopausal women, based on historical information, have a slight increase in mortality within several years after they are treated for breast cancer.