Do not visit Richard Sollazzo. It is a waste of time and money. He did not even know what type of cancer my mother had, despite the fact that we had sent him in advance all of my mother's medical records. I give further details below:
My mother has stage IV cancer and is being treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering. We made an appointment to see Richard Sollazzo on the referral of a chiropractor. Sollazzo's office asked us to send them in advance copies of all my mother's medical records, which were voluminous. The office also had us pay $450 in advance, but assured us that the fee would be reimbursed by my mother's insurance.
On the day of the appointment, we drove 90 minutes to get to Sollazzo's office. Once we got there, we were informed for the first time that actually none of this would be covered by insurance. We decided to go ahead with the appointment anyway because we had already gone to the trouble of transporting my mother all the way over to his office, and we (my mother's significant other and I) had taken days off from work specifically for this purpose.
As soon as we met Sollazzo, it was immediately clear that he had not reviewed any of my mother's records in advance. Amazingly, he literally did not even know what type of cancer she had.
Within 5 minutes of meeting us, he immediately started to pressure us to consent to a new type of testing called "chemosensitivity testing", which of course would incur significant additional fees not covered by insurance and paid directly to his office. One of his assistants walked in with a contract and stood there, pointedly waiting for my mother to sign. We later checked with oncologists at Memorial Sloan Kettering, and they told us that this type of testing is "quackery" (their actual words). I stress again that Sollazzo wanted my mother to do this type of expensive testing after he had only been speaking to us for five minutes, without any review of her records to see what kind of testing she had already previously undergone.
Sollazzo then went on to recommend dietary changes and kept citing studies about the dangers of sugar. We kept interjecting to tell him that my mother was fully aware of this and in fact had been on a virtually no sugar diet for years, yet he continued to ramble on, trying to give us a bibliography of articles/texts about this topic.
He next pulled out a book he had sitting on his desk about vitamin C and suggested that my mother get tested to see if she could tolerate high dosages of vitamin C. Again, that test would entail significant out of pocket costs.
After about 40 minutes of his recommending treatments and not taking any actual information from my mother herself, or from her medical records, he finally did a few tests: weight, BMI, fat percentage. These were all extremely basic things that we could have done ourselves, had we simply walked into a Walgreen's or GNC.
Sollazzo then continued to ramble on about the dangers of sugar, how mini-fasting could be another type of dietary change, and the need for exercise.
The appointment finally ended with him telling us that there was nothing he could do for us until my mother underwent the tests he had recommended.
Overall, his recommendations were of zero value and this appointment was an enormous waste of time and money. Anyone seeking further opinions for cancer treatment should see medical professionals who are affiliated with established institutions, rather than visit this man who was clearly only trying to get us to sign on for expensive tests that line his own pockets. His office ought to be closed down. read more
