Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 1998; 3: 188
There is no doubt on the validity of objectve remissions in patients with cancer undergoing unconventional oncological treatments. But in their scrutiny of these rare events mainstream and complementary medicine may come to irreconcilable conclusions.
An analysis was done of (1) cases of objective tumour regression of patients undergoing unconventional therapy reported to our research group, and (2) published case reports of spontaneous remissions of cancer.
Depending on the therapist’s/researcher’s medical paradigm and compliance to scientific methodology the very same course of disease of patients who experienced objective regressions of their cancer often was classified as spontaneous remission or respectively as therapeutic success and proof of therapeutic efficacy.
The reflection of terminology and of respective paradigmatic or epistemological presumptions is an indispensible prerequisite for an unprejudiced discourse between mainstream medicine and complementary medicine. For evaluation of data always means interpretation of observations.
