Former top model Elle Macpherson with breast cancer refuses chemotherapy

Elle MacPherson is an advocate of alternative, non-conventional therapies. Similarly, she has for years opposed vaccinations and other forms of regular medication. The breast cancer diagnosis came hard on the Australian. It turned out to be DCIS, a ductal carcinoma in situ, which is actually a preliminary stage of breast cancer. DCIS is treated as breast cancer because its subsequent course is unpredictable. The cancer cells are still in the breast and in most cases have not metastasized. Usually breast-conserving surgery is sufficient and then radiation and sometimes chemotherapy and/or hormone therapy is started, to reduce the chance of relapse.

Deception

In various media reports, Elle MacPherson testified that she refused a proposed mastectomy. In reality, she did undergo breast-conserving surgery instead, removing the tumor and a rim of surrounding healthy tissue. She refused post-treatment with chemotherapy and hormone therapy: the therapies are designed to preempt the risk of relapse. The treatments kill cancer cells that would have escaped the breast anyway and ended up elsewhere in the body. These wandering cells cannot be detected, so post-treatment is done to be on the safe side. Relapse in hormone-sensitive breast cancer can occur up to 20 years and later after surgery.

Elle MacPherson gives the impression that she cured her cancer with non-conventional methods, such as meditation. In reality, she underwent surgery. Had she also refused the surgery, chances are she could not have survived today.

The fact that the top model only came out with her story seven years after her breast cancer diagnosis is striking and may have to do with her book, which will be published this fall: Life Lessons, and Learning to Trust Yourself. Across the Western world, MacPherson is in the media for what she says is a holistic way of healing herself from breast cancer, which you will be able to read about in her memoir.

Comparative research

Cancer patients who refuse regular treatment (including surgery, which belongs to it) have significantly lower chances of survival, US research* shows. The risk of premature death is 2.5 times greater. For breast cancer, the difference is greatest, perhaps because breast cancer is so treatable. Five-year survival rates are very high with regular treatment (86.6%) and much lower with purely alternative treatment (58.1%). You die about 6 times faster if you reject anticipated treatment plan from a breast clinic.

We know celebrities, like top model Elle MacPherson, have a lot of followers and want to warn not to get caught up in this.

*JohnsonSB, Park HS, Gross CP, Yu JB. Use of Alternative Medicine for Cancer and Its Impact on Survival. Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Published online August 10 2017