Dr. Keith Block takes an integrative approach to cancer, with the goal of treating the whole person. Consequently, he advocates tailoring specific therapies to each patient's disease.
Differences in nutritional, social and emotional needs, differences in the terrain around each patient's cancer cells, all of these factors require individualized attention. This is true even for patients that have the same type of cancer, at the same stage and grade of the disease as each other.
(Transcribed from video interview)
Dr. Block:
So cancer treatment needs to be individualized because no two patients are alike. They are not alike even if they have the same disease. They have the same stage and grade of disease. They have even some of the same molecular targets.
The nature of human beings, the nature of the biology of cancer is that we are all markedly different and so tailoring a program to a patient’s social and emotional needs, to their nutritional needs which could be very different, to their biochemical environment, the actual terrain that surrounds the cancer cell, not just the cancer cell but also to tailor to the molecular fingerprint of the cancer.
So each of these things allows for us to layer a program, to tailor specific therapies to each of these different arenas that could be uniquely different, be it from one patient to another.
About Dr. Block, M.D.:
Dr. Keith I. Block, M.D., along with his wife Penny Block, M.A., Ph.D., founded the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment in 1980, with a focus on treating the patient as a whole person rather than simply treating the diagnosis. They developed a unique and truly integrative approach to cancer treatment which encompasses traditional and complementary medicine delivered in a caring environment.
Visit Dr. Block at http://www.blockmd.com/aboutus_letter.htm
Video:
https://www.empowher.com/cancer/content/cancer-treatment-should-it-be-individualized-dr-block-video