IN FOCUS

12.12.2024

You have cancer! Really?

Many patients who hear from their doctor they have cancer, feel trapped. Speechlessness, frightening, often panic. The doctor reassured. Often the tumor is located in a benign stage. In a variety of cancer diagnoses cancer is harmless. The...

Hyper accurate: pdd

Medicine today has several methods for the diagnosis of cancer. However, imaging, endoscopy and laboratory tests are not sufficient to assess the spread of tumor cells in the body and to locate these cells exactly. This gap is filled by photody...

Dear Michael Douglas

Since 2011 you have lived without cancer: we are glad to hear this. How the larynx cancer might have developed, a British journalist asked you recently. If your wild years triggered the larynx cancer: drugs, smoking, alcohol? That was the ...

Caries, periodontitis, cancer

“Please open your mouth!” the dentist says. Their well-trained eye does not only detect caries and periodontitis at the teeth, but also abnormal cell proliferation in the oral cavity and pharynx. And then there is for example this r...

Simple. Ingenious: PDT-plaster

  How can we treat white skin cancer in the sensitive area of the face? “Newly, with a plaster”, says Prof. Dr. Uwe Reinhold from Bonn. The first self-adhesive PDT-plaster contains the active agent 5-aminolevulin acid in cryst...

Amsterdam Experiences

Dr. Baris Karakullukcu is an otolaryngologist with further specialization on head and neck oncology and surgery, working at the Netherlands Cancer Institute/ Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam. He is working extensively on photodynamic the...

Tongue amputated

Shortly before Christmas 2011, the largest German daily tabloid BILD wrote about popular German actor Claus Biederstaedt (83): "Tongue amputated, cancer cured." An amputation is a high price to pay for a cure. The loss of a part of t...

Vaccine against Cancer?

Oncologist M.D. Winrich Rauschning says on the occasion of the World Cancer Day 2012: “We are on track here: Research in molecular biology reveals the mechanisms of carcinogenesis. That resulted in the idea to influence specific metabolic pr...

The Emperor of All Maladies

A Biography of Cancer The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cur...

The Inner Doctor

Many patients are conviced that their healing requires two doctors: The oncologist providing medical competency with certain theurapeutic options - and the inner doctor activating the healing powers of the patient: Faith, will, psyche, power, fitn...

Sigmund Freud

In 1923, the doctors diagnosed cancer in Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939), the founder of psychoanalysis, a carcinoma in his palatine which made numerous operations necessary in the following years. After having received the diagnosis, the ex...

  • You have cancer! Really?

    Many patients who hear from their doctor they have cancer, feel trapped. Speechlessness,...

  • Hyper accurate: pdd

    Medicine today has several methods for the diagnosis of cancer. However, imaging, endoscopy...

  • Dear Michael Douglas

    Since 2011 you have lived without cancer: we are glad to hear this. How the larynx...

  • Caries, periodontitis, cancer

    “Please open your mouth!” the dentist says. Their well-trained eye does not only...

  • Simple. Ingenious: PDT-plaster

      How can we treat white skin cancer in the sensitive area of the face? “Newly,...

  • Amsterdam Experiences

    Dr. Baris Karakullukcu is an otolaryngologist with further specialization on head and neck...

  • Tongue amputated

    Shortly before Christmas 2011, the largest German daily tabloid BILD wrote about popular German...

  • Vaccine against Cancer?

    Oncologist M.D. Winrich Rauschning says on the occasion of the World Cancer Day 2012: “We...

  • The Emperor of All Maladies

    A Biography of Cancer The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane...

  • The Inner Doctor

    Many patients are conviced that their healing requires two doctors: The oncologist providing...

  • Sigmund Freud

    In 1923, the doctors diagnosed cancer in Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939), the founder of...

Tongue amputated

Shortly before Christmas 2011, the largest German daily tabloid BILD wrote about popular German actor Claus Biederstaedt (83): "Tongue amputated, cancer cured."

An amputation is a high price to pay for a cure. The loss of a part of the body interferes profoundly with the physical and mental integrity of any human being. Of all people, an actor and speaker is particularly prone to suffer unimaginable emotional distress when agreeing to a three-quarter amputation of an important speaking organ to safe his life.

In many cases, an operation is essential to beat cancer. But it still is a procedure that not only strains the body. Especially amputations entail profound mental distress with numerous patients. That is why it is so important to take all possible treatment options into account and to search for possible alternatives. Besides chemotherapy and radiation, there luckily are methods like Photodynamic Therapy. PDT operates gently, precisely and can help to prevent extreme suffering.