For decades, cancer patients have been limited to a trio of treatment options. While surgery, chemotherapy and radiation have their effectiveness, they also have serious drawbacks that can compromise quality of life. Continued research in the area of immunotherapy is uncovering its power to fight cancer naturally while preserving the body’s healthy cells.
The exciting concept behind immunotherapy is that uses the power of the body’s own immune system to essentially treat itself. Unlike chemotherapy, the immune system is more adaptive and able to distinguish between healthy tissue and invaders such as cancer cells. Consider the example of childhood vaccines, which remain effective over time thanks to the immune system’s memory.
One of the biggest breakthroughs came in a 2013 study conducted by Bristol-Myers Squibb. A group of 52 melanoma patients was treated with one approved and one experimental drug. Nearly one-third experienced rapid and deep tumor regression. As study leader Dr. Jedd Wolchok observed, “We have spent several decades in cancer research learning better ways to treat the tumor. Now we are learning how to treat the patient.”
Dr. David Maloney has been working on targeted cancer therapies since he was a student at Stanford in the early 1980s. He’s currently focused on a procedure wherein a patient is infused with his own T-cells that have been harvested and genetically re-engineered to become better cancer “drones”. He cites the benefit of immunotherapy as a move away from a “one-size-fits-all” approach to customized treatments.
For more than 60 years, Issels has been on the forefront of integrative immuno-oncology treatments. Visit our website to read and hear first-hand testimonials from our patients.