A remarkable recovery, but was it mind over matter or modern science?

Anita Moorjani claims she cured herself of cancer after she underwent a near-death experience. Not surprisingly, doctors take a different view. But they concede that she appeared to be dying and that her recovery was remarkable.

Oncologist haematologist T.K. Chan was one of those who treated Moorjani last February when she was admitted to the Hong Kong Sanatorium Hospital and says she was close to death.

Chan and the other specialists tapped her chest to drain her lungs, which he says probably saved her life. They then began chemotherapy, a treatment she had refused for 31/2 years.

'Hodgkin's disease is quite curable,' says Chan. 'It can have a dramatic response to chemotherapy. If it had been another cancer patient in her state, I wouldn't have expected her to survive, but with lymphoma, it's never too late.

'Whether the spiritual experience helped, I'm not in a position to say. Let's just say she did do a little better than expected as a patient who was critically ill. It was a remarkable recovery. But I feel it was the chemotherapy, definitely, and the emergency draining of the chest.

'To be scientific, if she refused treatment from us and recovered, it could be due to her experience, but she did receive chemotherapy so it's not something absolute.'

Brian Walker, Moorjani's GP, treated her with an 'alternative support' cancer treatment which is said to work by helping the body's immune system to recognise cancer cells and deal with them naturally.