Mark,
I think that your statement about "...recurrance survival statistics are so dismal" as a result of the practice guidelines is speculative and a disservice to all of the people doing cancer research in this country.

The guidelines are published by a consortium of the top leading comprehensive cancer centers/research centers. They don't always agree either and that is usually noted. But at least there is a mimimum standard of care for cancer patients. Some have died here because they haven't even had access to the minimum standard.

New technology has to be validated for its efficacy before it can become a standard. In the case of prostate cancer the death rate actually increased with some new technology "advances" so they were dropped.

I should mention also it is usually the manufacturers of the high technology devices that are pushing them for expanded "indications for use", usually based on data from relatively small patient groups to prove safety. Efficacy is another issue and it takes many more studies with larger patient groups and demographics to validate that. It is a long and arduous process for something to become a "standard of care".

What about all of the clinical trials going on constantly throughout the country is this truly indicative of "this is the best we can do" position...?

There was an article just published that survival rates from all forms of cancer is up by 14% and the goal is a 70% overall survival rate. Obviously the standards are working for some peoples cancers.

In my case, my head & neck surgeon is going to follow me every 60 days for the next three years, exceeding the standards. It is ultimately left up to the health care practitioner to determine how intensive followup will be.

The insurance companies (as well as medicare) have their issues as well and this is part of the national debate on the balance between which types of tests are necessary and which are excessive. This is an extremely complicated advocacy issue. Do you spend millions on testing and treatment for someone who has a short time to live or is elderly? What does that do to the availability and costs of services to the rest of the population? Medical care is a limited resource -what is a fair and equitable way of allocating it.

IMHO the recurrence/survival statistics are bad because we fight a particularly insidious and aggressive form of cancer. To balance this out there are even worse forms of cancer, like pancreatic or liver. A person dies every minute from cancer in the United States. Once an hour a person dies from oral cancer.

I understand the need to lash out, I'm angry too, but instead of targeting the researchers why not spend the energy targeting environmental pollution, tobacco products, drug and alcohol use and other smoking guns. The researchers are like the Dutch boy trying to hold back the flood.