Xu Kecheng: China's cancer warrior

Professor Dr. Xu Kecheng is an oncologist with decades of experience. He is a renowned Chinese physician who has made significant efforts to develop more gentle cancer treatments, where the patients' quality of life is integrated into the course of treatment.

He has lived with incurable liver cancer for nearly 20 years.

Professor Xu still works as the chief physician at the Fuda Cancer Hospital in southern China, and his story has touched me deeply because he is a holistic doctor who wishes to help patients live a life with cancer.

Coming from poor background

He was born into a very poor family in 1940. Despite all odds, he became a doctor.

Twenty years ago, his mother died of liver cancer, and a few years later, he himself received a serious liver cancer diagnosis with a survival prognosis of 19 months. – cancer has become his area of focus. Today, he has defied all odds and lived with cancer for 20 years.

His theory is that we all have cancer cells within us, but they have not mutated in amounts that make them dangerous. He does not think of cancer as a hostile invasion, but rather that cancer cells are cells that have mutated in a number that has gotten out of hand.

From a body filled with good "normal cells," there are cells where replication errors have occurred, and as cells mutate, the mutation will now become the carrier of this replication error.
The professor does therefore not believe that we can eradicate cancer cells 100%, but rather that we should think of cancer as a chronic illness, and that we must help the body live in a coexistence with the cancer cells and utilize every means possible so the body itself can divide the good cells to prevent cell apoptosis.

Professor Dr. Xu Kecheng has himself consumed hydrogen since 2012, but officially the hospital only researched hydrogen in animals until 2018, when they initiated a cancer study with hydrogen therapy for stage 4 individuals. “Real world survey”

In 2001, the Chinese Minister of Health asked Dr. Xu Kecheng to establish and lead a specialised cancer hospital.

The Fuda Cancer Hospital was established, and Dr. Xu Kecheng has since been the hospital's director and medical leader for the development of treatment practices for critical illnesses.

The treatment at Fuda Cancer Hospital includes conventional chemotherapy, trans arterial local chemotherapy, iodine seed implantation, also known as brachytherapy with radioactive iodine, as well as other local methods. Since 2018, the hospital has consistently applied hydrogen therapy as an early part of the process when a patient arrives at the hospital.

Since its founding in 2001, the hospital has grown to approximately 400 beds along with an extensive outpatient treatment program. Fuda has positioned itself as a key centre for clinical cancer treatment and is publicly recognized in China as a state-acknowledged role model.

The FUDA Cancer Hospital in Guangzhou, China, has three overall principles:

“Living with cancer” - the hospital's mission is to regard cancer as a chronic disease, to prolong patients' lives, and to improve the patient's quality of life.
That the hospital provides integrity in treatment.

For the staff, the following applies:

• No profit
• No bribery
• No acceptance of dinner invitations or gifts

For the patients, the following applies:

• No excessive treatment
• No excessive examinations
• No overmedication

To live with cancer: A new treatment philosophy

Professor Xu Kecheng began to think differently - instead of curing and making patients cancer-free, they began researching how to help patients live a life with cancer.

More and more people will get cancer over the coming years, and the Chinese government could see that the number of cancer sufferers would rise. Consequently, there was a political desire to intensify research into cancer rehabilitation, and the FUDA hospital was established in Guangzhou.

In 2019, Mette-Marie Linding, founder and CEO of iWater, read about the renowned Chinese doctor who himself had aggressive cancer while at the same time working as the chief physician at FUDA.

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"Xu Kecheng's story touched me because he was born into a very poor family 85 years ago during the Chinese revolution, but despite all odds, he became a doctor. And then his mother died of cancer, and a few years later, he himself received a serious cancer diagnosis with a statistical survival of 19 months.
He established a private hospital for wealthy Chinese and foreigners who come from all over the world to be treated for cancer, BUT he also created an area within the hospital where poor Chinese people can come for free and receive hydrogen therapy."
Mette-Marie Linding

Mette-Marie lost her husband to cancer in 2013 and has since worked intensively with hydrogen and with helping people who wish to include hydrogen therapy in their overall treatment efforts.

The FUDA hospital has been followed from a distance at iWater, and particularly Dr. Xu and his work. But after 2019, when Dr. Xu and his team published an observational study (Real World Survey) - where 82 stage IV patients showed highly promising results from hydrogen inhalation alone.

It was this study that I read in 2019, and which motivated me to buy my first hydrogen inhaler myself. (you will find the Danish translation under comments).

In 2024, Mette-Marie and her new husband Søren Linding Sørensen travelled to China to visit the hospital and meet Professor Dr. Xu Kecheng and find out why and how the Chinese do it so differently?

The Chinese approach is more holistic - the Yin/Yang philosophy as we know it from acupuncture and reflexology. Their approach is that if you want to help people be free from bad cells, the body must be strengthened to better help itself at the cellular level.

On Tuesday, March 19, 2024, Mette-Marie and Søren took a taxi out to the FUDA hospital.
Prior to this, Mette-Marie had tried sending emails to Dr. Xu Kecheng but received no response. So, in the end, she decided to visit the Fuda hospital in Guangzhou and see the actual location where they treat with hydrogen.

So, she showed up at the hospital, and before I knew it, she was on her way in the professor's car with his private chauffeur – to Professor Xu Kecheng's office – and we are talking about China's leading cancer doctor, who is visited every week by delegations from all over the world – all wishing to see and hear about the Fuda hospital.

It was a very positive and overwhelming experience.
At the hospital, Mette-Marie saw how the patients sat and inhaled hydrogen – and both Xu Kecheng and his assistant Dr. Kong showed me around the hospital. They saw how the hospital practically organizes hydrogen treatment as ward treatment and day treatment, and how some patients are provided with machines for home treatment.

The visit gave Mette-Marie new insight and strengthened her belief in the possibilities of hydrogen therapy.

According to the Tidslerne website, several Danish cancer patients have already travelled to China to receive treatment because the hospital utilizes a multimodal approach - meaning they attack the cancer from multiple angles at once.