Cancers Can Disappear on Their Own

In a new article in the Journal of the American Medical Association the long held belief that cancers do not ever disappear is shaken up. Physicians and scientists do not really understand the phenomenon, but sometimes tumors just reverse course and disappear on their own. Yet sometimes it happens.

In fact, there have been many cases of testicular cancer vanishing after it was first discovered unequivocally. One study found that 60 percent of precancerous cervical cells, found with Pap tests, revert to normal within a year and 90 percent revert within three years

Sometimes, early cancers just stop growing. Researchers at Johns Hopkins found that a high fraction of untreated small prostate cancers simply did not grow - some 70 to 80 percent of them. A similar result has been found for kidney cancers

Here is another fascinating disclosure. Virtually everyone by middle age or old age is riddled with cancer cells and precancerous cells, according to Thea Tlsty, a professor of pathology at the University of California, San Francisco. This was discovered in autopsy studies of people who died of other causes and who had no idea that they had them. Nor did they have test evidence or symptoms of tumors or cancer. "The really interesting question," Dr. Tlsty said, "is not so much why do we get cancer as why don't we get cancer?" So, here too, is still more evidence that not all cancer cells progress to full blown and deadly cancers unless they are successfully treated or removed.

Why do all these positive aspects of cancer happen? Perhaps it is diet, an immune system effect or biochemical or hormone changes. Maybe, even, it has something to do with what vitamins and supplements people take. At this time, no one really knows with certainty why some people escape awful consequences of cancer. But what is becoming clearer to the medical world is that all the early and highly promoted screening and testing for many kinds of cancer are leading to a lot of unnecessary and expensive treatments with a host of terrible side effects, but not necessarily longer life spans.