By speculating on anti-cancer study, media outlets are doing a disservice

TWO MEDICAL SCIENTISTS from East China’s Zhejiang province recently wrote an essay on online medical journal eLife, saying cTACE treatment for liver cancer can be improved by combining it with bicarbonate, as well as cutting off blood supply to the tumor. They call their new method TILA-TACE. But some media outlets have speculated that Chinese scientists can cure cancer at very low costs. This is bad journalism, says Beijing News:

The work of the two Chinese scientists and their colleagues is a breakthrough in the treatment of liver cancer. TILA-TACE proved effective for all 40 patients in the clinical trial, while cTACE was effective for 18 of the 37 patients.

TILA-TACE not only strengthened medicines and cut off blood supply to the tumor with arterial cannula, but also introduced bicarbonate to better treat patients.

It’s the use of bicarbonate in the treatment that prompted media outlets to speculate. One of the headlines read: “Chinese scientists use baking soda to let cancer cells starve”. The headline attracted eyeballs, but it is scientifically wrong, because baking soda is only one of the drugs used in the treatment and played a minor, not the major, role.

Lactic acid helps cancerous cells to get glucose, their main source of energy.

The role bicarbonate plays in treating cancer is to react with the hydrion of lactic acid and thus change the entire process. This, together with cutting off blood supply to the tumor, could kill cancerous cells.

Such research works should be encouraged, because they give cancer patients hope. But exaggerating them can curb the efforts of scientists and harm their credibility.

More importantly, “letting cancer cells starve” is only one of the methods used in anti-cancer research. The other important method is to activate people’s immune system to prevent cancer from developing, instead of fighting it after it develops.

By exaggerating scientists’ achievements, media outlets will end up misguiding decision-makers and thus curb the flow of funds for further, more intensive research. So media outlets should never speculate.