Monthly Archives: May 2014

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, Immunotherapy

Interesting New Cancer Treatments

Build Up Your Immune System
Build Up Your Immune System

Cancer treatment is in a state of flux. The three cancer treatments – surgery, chemotherapy and radiation — that have dominated Western medicine for decades are finding much needed competition in interesting new cancer treatments. Recent genetic and cellular research has resulted in discoveries that are broadening our understanding of cancer and how cancer cells interact with the body’s immune system.

These fascinating revelations are refocusing our approach to cancer treatment as traditionalists begin to recognize the benefits of integrative medicine and immunotherapy in treating cancer.

Among the more interesting new treatment approaches are:

  • Strengthening immune response. Genome sequencing is being used to identify immune system cells that attack specific mutations in malignant cells. In a recent trial, billions of immune system cells were replicated in the laboratory and infused into the patient’s bloodstream. According to a New York Times article, the patient’s tumors began “melting away.”
  • Combining alternative and conventional treatments. Increasingly, alternative cancer therapies are being used hand-in-hand with conventional cancer treatments as oncologists recognize the value of taking an integrative approach to treating cancer. By combining immunotherapy with conventional treatment, patients are experiencing better outcomes with fewer problematic side effects.
  • Targeting cell processes. Advanced targeted therapies are being used to manipulate specific cell processes, allowing immune system cells to more effectively and efficiently attack cancer cells. Researchers are also experimenting with genetically reprogramming cells. While promising, early trials have also proven dangerous for the patients, as a recent Forbes article indicates.

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Alternative Cancer Treatment, Stage Four Cancer Treatment

Stage 4 Cancer: From Desperation To Hope

There is Still Hope
There is Still Hope

No other disease carries the aura of fear and panic associated with cancer. Until recently a cancer diagnosis was considered a death warrant. But new discoveries and a move toward integrative cancer treatments have pushed back the shroud of death, extending the average cancer survival rate from 5 to 10 years – and many patients are living decades longer. Cancer deaths in the U.S. have been declining steadily over the past 20 years. Today, integrative immunotherapy offers even stage 4 cancer patients real hope of long-term remission.

Stage 4 Transformation

Many stage 4 cancer patients turn to Issels alternative cancer treatment centers after traditional cancer treatments have failed. They arrive at our clinics sick and in despair. Many are too ill to walk or talk. Moving beyond standard treatments is an act of desperation — a final grasp at life – as it was for Jim Gibson. Jim’s decision to seek integrative immunotherapy for recurrent small cell lung cancer was a last resort that proved to be both life-saving and life changing. Four weeks after beginning Issels Treatment®, Jim achieved complete remission. Now 10 years cancer-free, Jim leads a healthy active life.

From Desperation to Hope

Jim’s story is not unique among Issels’ patients. We urge you to listen to our patients’ stories. Each story is a tale of desperation transformed by hope under the care of Issels compassionate staff. While each patient’s story is unique; many, including patients with stage 4 cancer, have achieved complete and long-term remission of their cancer as a result of Issels non-toxic individualized immunotherapy.

The positive results being achieved with integrative immunotherapy are leading more cancer patients to choose immunotherapy as a primary treatment. As our patient Nicole revealed in her video, “It would be so nice if I had come here first.”

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy

Integrative Immunotherapy: Cancer Treatment that Improves Quality of Life

Relax
Relax

Cancer treatment and quality of life often generally considered mutually exclusive terms. When surgery, chemotherapy and radiation are the only options, cancer patients often find the “cure” to be as painful and damaging to their well-being as — and sometimes worse — than the disease.

If the lessons of history hold true, today’s standard cancer treatments will someday be considered barbaric. Even if cancer is not completely preventable in the future, it is likely that surgery, chemotherapy and radiation will be replaced by kinder, gentler, more effective cancer treatments that do not rely on destroying the body to heal it. We are already heading in that direction.

Immunotherapy: Natural Defense

Integrative immunotherapy, which has formed the basis of Issels’ holistic cancer treatments for more than 60 years, has allowed many cancer patients to treat their cancer and enjoy a better quality of life. Issels’ unique record of complete and long-term remission of advanced cancers and cancers that had proven resistant to the standard cancer treatments favored by practitioners of Western medicine demonstrates that cancer can be successfully fought by tapping into the body’s own natural defense mechanism – our immune system.

Emphasis On Quality of Life

Increasingly, Western cancer researchers are coming to the same conclusions that have driven Issels’ alternative cancer therapies for decades:

  • They have begun to recognize the power of the body’s immune system to fight cancer without causing patients additional harm.
  • They have begun to realize that fighting cancer requires an integrative approach that attacks cancer on multiple levels.
  • They are beginning to understand that cancer patients want and deserve to enjoy a high quality of life both during and after treatment.

At Issels alternative cancer treatment centers, you do not have to choose between treatment and quality of life – we offer both!

Alternative Cancer Treatment

Highlighting Issels Santa Barbara

Cancer Treatment in Santa Barbara
Cancer Treatment in Santa Barbara

“At Issels Medical Center I was empowered by the calm, compassion, love and knowledge — and seeing very sick patients blossom and being able to walk and talk again within short three weeks.” — Issels Medical Center patient Barbara Humphrey

Barbara’s comment is a common sentiment among patients at Issels Medical Center in Santa Barbara, California. The compassionate encouragement of our staff is as integral to the treatment process as our more than six decades of experience with integrative immunotherapy.

Treating More Than Cancer

Issels Integrative Oncology in Tijuana, Mexico is an internationally known alternative cancer treatment center, but we realize that not every patient needs the intensive inpatient care, non-toxic cancer vaccines or advanced targeted cancer therapies available at our Mexico facility.

We have also found that our immunobiologic core treatment program can be beneficial in treating other immune system diseases, not just cancer. We opened our Santa Barbara outpatient center to make Issels’ unique individualized immunotherapy protocols and German homeopathic medicine more accessible.

On the American Riviera

While you are visiting our outpatient clinic, the focus will be on your health and ameliorating the condition that has brought you to Issels. But because we understand that your life is about more than your cancer or disease, we have located our outpatient facility in the beautiful coastal community of Santa Barbara in Southern California. Just north of Los Angeles in an area known as the American Riviera, Santa Barbara enjoys a Mediterranean climate and offers a wealth of outdoor and cultural pleasures.

For our patients’ convenience, Issels Medical Center is located close to major hospitals, fitness centers, health food stores and a variety of restaurants. Out-of-town patients can find comfortable accommodations nearby at special rates.

Click for more information about integrative treatments available at our outpatient clinic in Santa Barbara, California.

Cancer Research, Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy the Cancer Protocol for the Future

Immunotherapy is Being Recognized
Immunotherapy is Being Recognized

It’s not exactly a new procedure – researchers have been working on immunotherapy for decades in the fight against certain types and stages of cancer – but the protocol is getting renewed interest in the light of clinical trials and new treatments that show promise; cancer immunotherapy was even named Science magazine’s 2013 “Breakthrough of the Year.”

In the past, immunotherapy has shown uneven or unremarkable results. “But as the sophistication of our understanding of immunology increased,” Charles Link of New Link Genetics told MIT Technology Review, “new strategies evolved to attack the disease, and those strategies are turning out to work in the clinic.”

Today’s immunotherapy uses the body’s own immune system – the “T-cells” – to target and attack malignant cancer cells. When used in conjunction with chemotherapy, immunotherapy may serve to shorten and lighten the chemo treatment, which can dramatically reduce the unpleasant side effects and toxic complications of the powerful  toxins.

A handful of major pharmaceutical companies have immunotherapy protocols in tests. In one early-stage trial of melanoma patients, half of those receiving high-dose immunotherapy had tumors shrink or disappear, and a year later the majority of those patients were still alive – a notable result, as late-stage melanoma survival rates are typically low.

T-cell protocols are just one of the new wave of cancer treatments that are making headlines. A form of cellular therapy, for example, trains a patient’s own immune cells to better recognize cancer cells, after which these powerful fighters are infused back into the patient. One pharma company is developing virus-based gene therapies that, according to MIT Technology Review, “selectively kill cancer cells while simultaneously making the cells better targets for the immune system.”

Immunotherapy, News

Immunotherapy in the News

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Immunotherapy in the News
Immunotherapy in the News

The longstanding treatment for cancer – which typically involves some combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation – is no longer the only treatment.

Over the past decade, new therapies including hormone therapy, molecularly targeted therapy and now, T-cell therapy, are exciting researchers and catching attention from the public.

In the news recently on April 2014, professor and researcher Dr. Catherine Bollard of Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine stated that immunotherapy shows promise in treating the disease. “T-cell therapies are becoming the next wave of the future for cancer therapy,” Dr. Bollard is quoted in AuburnPub.

Immunotherapy involves triggering one’s own immune system to combat malignant cancer cells, and providing support to the system. The immune system’s cells – referred to as “T-cells” – are harvested by doctors who then use man-made proteins to “train” the cells to identify and destroy cancer cells without harming other systems in the body.

Though widely effective, chemotherapy has well-known side effects – from nausea to hair loss, fatigue and pain – which happens because the chemo’s powerful toxins attack healthy cells as well as malignant ones.

When used along with traditional treatment, T-cell therapy can reduce the amount of chemotherapy and radiation needed at early cancer stages. This could help the body recover more quickly and offer patients fewer unpleasant  complications. More importantly, the immunotherapy could aid in preventing relapse later one. “The benefit,” says Dr. Bollard, “is that [the T-cells] can go places where the drug therapy can’t, so it can go to parts of the body that would not normally be reached by drug therapy.”

T-cells are still undergoing clinical trials, but experts like Dr. Bollard believe they have the potential to become a standard therapy.

At Issels we have been using our immunobiologic core treatment to boost the body’s immune system with powerful and positive results for patients. We invite you to find out more about our programs.