WA:Radical cancer treatment 'helped wife'

AAP General News (Australia)
08-30-2011
WA:Radical cancer treatment 'helped wife'

PERTH, Aug 30 AAP - The man who helped set up two radical cancer treatment centres
in Australia has told a Perth coronial inquest he still believes the treatment program
works.

Keith Preston said he helped Dr Hellfried Sartori establish centres in Darwin and Perth
between 2004 and 2005 after the controversial cancer treatment helped his late wife.

Mr Preston told the coronial inquiry on Tuesday that his partner of 34 years had been
diagnosed with ovarian cancer and was given just six weeks to live when he decided to
try alternative treatments.

He says his wife lived another 10 years thanks to various unconventional treatments,
eventually dying after blood seeped into her lungs while in Thailand after receiving Dr
Sartori's treatment in 2004.

The treatment involved the administration of substances such as cesium chloride, magnesium
sulphate and potassium chloride.

Mr Preston said an autopsy revealed that the radical treatment had worked to remove
most of the cancer previously spread through his wife's stomach and other parts of her
body.

"The pathologist told me the cancer was dead," he said.

Mr Preston said Dr Sartori had seemed "very knowledgeable" and described his wife's
death as "just rotten bad luck".

After his wife's death, Mr Sartori decided to set up a centre in her honour and helped
Dr Sartori spread his treatment ideas in Australia.

"(Dr Sartori) was desperate to get his treatment up and running," Mr Preston told the .

Mr Preston said he was was told by Dr Sartori, and believed for himself, that the treatment
had had a "good" success rate in the United States and that if anyone who did not recover
from the cancer it was likely to be due to post-treatment care.

He said he believed that there was a "big possibility" that patients could overcome
cancer if they followed the treatment.

"They come good so quick that they're in with a chance ... you've always got a chance
until you're dead," he said.

Asked if he still thought the treatment was good, Mr Preston replied: "I would take
it if I had to."

Deputy State Coroner Evelyn Vicker is investigating the deaths of Sandra McCarty, 53,
from Victoria, Pia Bosso, 68, from NSW, Perth woman Sandra Kokalis, 52, Deborah Gruber,
42, from New York, and Perth man Carmelo Vinciullo, 29.

The five, who all had severe forms of cancer, underwent Dr Sartori's treatment program
at the Perth home of Dr Alexandra Boyd in 2005.

All four women died about two weeks after being rushed to hospital with various symptoms,
including gastrointestinal bleeding and seizures.

Mr Vinciullo began treatment in May 2005 but stopped after he felt unbearable pain.

He died that July following respiratory failure.

The inquest continues.

AAP anr/mm/hn/

KEYWORD: SARTORI

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