I think you misunderstood my statement:
I meant that a radiation oncologist would have less use for RECAF in that his job is based on an acute need for radiation imaging. By the time a patient needs radiation, symptoms are generally present and a lesion has been localized. An internist, on the other hand, would have great interest in RECAF because he takes people from intake and puts them through a differential diagnosis. This is the intended use of RECAF -- for primary and early detection of non or mildly symptomatic neoplastic growth.
Also, the idea of "looking forever" doesn't seem all that plausible to me. First, a false positive result wouldn't send the hospital into a headless chicken scramble. There are other ways of rationally confirming a cancerous process that involve finding out risk factors, other symptoms, etc. Certainly if a number of variables are positive (say RECAF is positive and there is bleeding in the bowel, weight loss, etc.), then you can narrow it down significantly. If all symptoms are absent and something like RECAF is positive, then it is unlikely that a doctor would do anything but increase the frequency of a check up. Increasing the frequency of a check up allows a growing cancer to be caught early and therefore would directly improve treatment. One of the biggest problems is that adults, especially adult males, are very delinquent in scheduling a regular check up.
On Thursday I met a patient named Chuck, who had a colonoscopy at age 47 which was clear. Because his family had a history of polyps (read: possible genetic predisposition to colon cancer), he was asked to return for colonoscopy in three years. He put it off a number of times, and didn't return until symptoms drove him into the hospital at age 58. He had colon cancer and needed sugery. He said if he had come in earlier they could have removed the polyp without surgery before it became cancerous. This is what RECAF can do. It can provide a marker that can alert a doctor to be on watch for symptoms and to monitor high-risk areas in a patients clinical presentation. Used even as an "early warning sign," RECAF could provide a direct benefit to treatment outcomes for all types of cancers by alerting the patient and doctor to be on the lookout and to schedule more regular checkups.
In my mind this is indisputable. There is really nothing that would convince me that something like this will not aid us in the fight to increase patient survival rates in cancer. If this particular product is annihilated by the Russian mob, a product like it would still be of the same benefit. The idea that it's worthless clinically is balderdash. It might not help a radiologist look at tumors that can be palpated or found by following severe symptoms on physical exam, but it definitely will help doctors in the hospital find out whether or not a patient has a silent tumor process that needs to be monitored more closely.
GLTA Longs!
BK
AI
