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.

Robert Gorter, MD, PhD – cancer survivor

“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.”