Treatment of Cancer: Need for Paradigm Shift

The word ‘cancer’ obviously provokes a sense of immediate trepidation and has unwittingly ‘metastasised’ the human perception solely eliciting a sickening feeling of hopelessness despite the unabated claims on improved treatments. Such current treatment modalities include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and traditional, herbal and home therapies. An in-depth discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of these treatment modalities is beyond the horizon of this essay. The objective is to highlight the treatment cost as a cardinal factor impacting the emotional state of the patients as well as the caretakers especially in view of the equivocal nature of ‘cure’ in many a cancer.