Families usually ask what their oncologist will think. This is how we answer.
All guidesBefore you come
How This Fits With Your Oncology Care
If you are already under an oncologist, this is the question that matters most, and the one we would rather answer directly than leave you to work out. The short version: alongside, not instead of, and never at the cost of delaying something that works.
The short answer
RFQMR is not offered as a replacement for conventional cancer treatment, and we would not agree to treat you on that basis.
The research describing this technology positions it in three ways: as a stand-alone treatment where nothing else remains available, as an addition to conventional treatment, and as something given before conventional treatment. The manual is specific that the therapy can be used concurrently with conventional therapies, and in the published trial the great majority of patients had already exhausted what standard oncology could offer them.
What none of that supports is substituting this for treatment that has a good chance of working. If your oncologist has recommended surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormonal or targeted treatment with the intention of curing or controlling your cancer, that is the treatment that should go ahead, on schedule.
The risk is not symmetrical. Someone who adds this to good oncological care has lost nothing if it does not help. Someone who chooses it instead of treatment that would have worked may lose something that cannot be recovered. We are not willing to be part of the second outcome, and any clinic that is should worry you.
Where it fits, depending on your situation
"Alongside" means different things depending on where you are in your treatment. These are the four situations we see most often.
Four situations, four different answers
Find the row closest to your own position.
If none of these describes you, that is a reason to talk to us rather than to assume. Situations that do not fit a category usually need a conversation, not a web page.
What "alongside" means in practice
Four weeks of daily treatment in another country has practical consequences for a treatment schedule at home. These are the things that need thinking through before you commit to dates.
- Your chemotherapy cycles. If you are on a three-weekly or four-weekly cycle, twenty-eight consecutive days away needs planning around it. Sometimes the timing works neatly, sometimes it does not, and it is much easier to solve before flights are booked.
- Blood monitoring. If you are having regular counts, that monitoring continues while you are here. We can arrange the tests, but your oncologist needs to know who is doing what and should receive the results.
- Radiotherapy to the same area. If you have had radiotherapy to the region being treated, tell us, with dates and doses if you have them. It does not automatically rule anything out, but it changes the assessment.
- Surgery already scheduled. Surgery with curative intent takes precedence. We would want to work around that date rather than ask you to move it.
- Scans and response assessment. Your oncologist will be tracking your disease on their own schedule. Coordinating imaging avoids duplicate scans and makes any change easier to interpret.
Talking to your oncologist
We would strongly encourage you to tell your oncologist you are considering this, and to do it before you come rather than afterwards.
Some oncologists will be supportive, some neutral, and some sceptical. Scepticism is a reasonable professional position given the state of the evidence, and it is not a reason to keep the plan from them. What you want to avoid is your treating team discovering after the fact that you spent four weeks having a treatment they knew nothing about, because that damages the relationship you depend on most.
To make that conversation easier, we can send you the published trial paper in full, along with a summary of what is proposed in your case. Doctors find it far easier to engage with a document than with a description of a website.
Questions worth asking each of us
If our answers and theirs differ, notice it, and ask why.
Ask us
- Given my diagnosis and stage, what specifically do you expect this to do?
- What will you measure to tell whether it is working, and when?
- What happens if the first course shows no benefit?
- What will you send my oncologist, and when?
Ask your oncologist
- Is there any reason this would interfere with my current treatment?
- Does four weeks away affect my schedule here, and can we work around it?
- What monitoring would you want while I am away?
- Are there trials or newer options for my cancer I should consider first?
What we need from you
Coordination only works in both directions. To treat you safely alongside an existing plan, we need that plan in front of us.
- Your oncologist's contact details, and your permission to write to them
- Your current treatment plan, including what you are on now and what is scheduled next
- Recent clinic letters, which usually tell us more in two pages than a long conversation
- Imaging and reports, ideally the images themselves
- Recent blood results, particularly counts, kidney and liver function
With your consent we write to your oncologist before treatment starts, setting out what is planned, and again afterwards with what was delivered and what was found. That correspondence is standard practice here rather than something you need to request.