Experience with cancer

Robert Gorter opened his private practice and health care center in the hearth of Amsterdam in 1974. Only a few weeks after opening his practice, he was diagnosed with far-advanced, Stage IV testicular cancer – at that time described as “teratocarcinoma”, which is a type of cancer curently defined as germ-cell carcinoma.

He was able to recover successfully through nontoxic treatment – that is, without the use of chemotherapy or radiation. His treatment consisted solely of therapeutic fever (hyperthermia) and injections of a known oncological botanical, the European mistletoe. This experience motivated him to further explore new, nontoxic approaches to cancer therapy.

“At that time, the dendritic cells were not known, therefore we couldn’t use them therapeutically, but I did hyperthermia and I injected myself as a doctor with Viscum album (Mistletoe).

I decided not to reveal my end-stage cancer diagnosis.Instead of focusing on the disease, I put all my energy into building a professional career. It took me about one year to achieve complete remission.

As a practicing physician, knowing that chemotherapy and radiation would inflict massive toxic side effects without much hope of a prolonged life expectancy, I decided to decline these options and go for a nontoxic cancer therapy. It has now been more than three decades ago since I was given that end-stage cancer diagnosis and I continue to live all these years to the fullest, without any signs or symptoms of cancer. I think what also really helps is how your mind and how your heart work together, to have a vision and feel that you are in control of your therapy. Of course, hope is extremely important as well.
I really believe this is also the basis of the Gorter Model, that we try to the best we can to give patients a realistic hope and faith in what they do and we try to give them as far as we can, also care and love.”