Doctors are most concerned with treatment outcome. To determine treatment efficacy, the commonly used clinical method is the evidence-based approach, which involves prospective, randomized and double-blind control studies. However, in practice such studies are very difficult to implement. For example, when we study the efficacy of cryosurgical ablation, it is best to have two groups of patients with one group of patients given cryosurgical ablation while patients in the other group, the control group, are not given cryosurgical ablation. But most of our patients come to our hospital for cryosurgical ablation and we cannot go against their wishes and put them under the control group.
We are conducting clinical research to assess the efficacy of our treatment. In recent years we have compiled the outcomes of cryosurgical ablation on liver cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and soft tissue tumours, and the outcomes of photodynamic therapy and immunotherapy on patients with different types of cancer. The main therapeutic targets are advanced cancer patients who are either at the intermediate stage, or at the late stages of their diseases and the main aim of the treatment is to extend their lives and to improve their quality of life.
However, treatment efficacy is not entirely dependent on treatment methods; it also involves other factors such as emotion, life-style, family environment and various other factors. As our targets are mainly advanced cancer patients who are either at the intermediate or late stage of their diseases and the main aims of treatment are to prolong their survival and to improve their quality of life, we always find that for some patients with similar conditions and given the same treatment, their survival period is not necessarily similar. We wonder why!