All posts by Chris

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Researchers Find a Single Protein That Causes Cancer to Spread

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New Protein in Blood Found To Spread Cancer
New Protein in Blood Found To Spread Cancer

At the Issels® Center for Immuno-Oncology, we provide you with as much information as possible about recent medical research discoveries that advance your goals and ours of preventing, treating and curing cancer. One recent wonderful breakthrough could prevent cancer from the breast spreading to the brain.

While studying breast cancer, researchers from The Institute of Cancer Research of London and the University of Leeds found a protein that promotes the growth of new blood vessels. Why does this protein, which they have designated as DOCK4, matter?

Tumor Growth Cycle

Cancer needs food to survive and grow. This food, in the form of oxygen and nutrients found in blood, reaches existing cancer cells through blood vessels. When new blood vessels form close to these cells, the cells multiply and the cancer spreads.

The Research Results

The researchers learned the following about DOCK4 and cancer:

  • DOCK4, along with another protein designated DOCK9, are critical to the formation of the interior of blood vessels — the channels through which blood flows.
  • Removing DOCK4 and DOCK9 using precision techniques slowed blood vessel growth.

The researchers hope these results will one day assist them when creating new methods for halting the growth of secondary breast cancer tumors. Additionally, a better understanding of blood vessel formation could help them to create a method for identifying men and women who are at greater risk for getting brain and other tumors caused by breast cancer.

We are impressed at Issels® with this new research and extremely hopeful for what it means for the future of cancer detection and immunotherapy treatments. For more information, contact us today!

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

21 Year Old Student Sets Her Goal – Find a Cure for Cancer

Finding The Cure
Finding The Cure

At Issels®, we want you to know more about existing and up-and-coming professionals who have dedicated their lives to treating and curing cancer using precision medicine. Marissa Market, a 21-year-old from Essex, Canada who recently graduated from the University of Windsor with a degree in biology, is one of those amazing people.

As noted by The Windsor Star, Marissa first announced to her parents her intention to cure cancer when she was still an elementary school student. Since that time, she has never forgotten that goal.

Amazing Facts About Marissa Market

  • Marissa’s youth was filled with achievements. She studied in The International Baccalaureate program, co-authored a textbook about epigenetics and volunteered in the research lab of Dr. Lisa Porter at the University of Windsor when she was only in 9th grade.
  • She gained a lab position with Dr. Porter as a college sophomore and won NSERC government grants three summers in a row so she could research mutations of a protein called tuberin that causes one type of cancer.
  • Marissa, competing against 1,600 others, won one of only four available openings in the University of Ottawa’s prestigious seven-year MD/PhD program that focuses on physician and cancer treatment research graduate study because she plans to research viruses and other techniques used to fight cancer.

Marissa Market represents a new generation of doctors who specialize in research. This type of combined study means that these physicians are uniquely qualified to provide the best precision treatments to their patients.

For more information about Marissa and other cancer treatment pioneers, or to talk with us about our integrative immunotherapy methods, contact our Issels® team today.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, Immuno-Oncology, Immunotherapy, Uncategorized

Recent Gene Mutation Discovery Linked to Prostate Cancer Offers New Testing and Treatment Hopes

Cancer Support.
Reducing The Chance of Prostate Cancer

We believe at Issels® Immuno-Oncology that integrative immunotherapy treatment plans are critical for successful patient outcomes; which is why we are so excited about the following prostate cancer risk detection and screening news:

The National Cancer Institute estimates that approximately 27,540 American men will die from prostate cancer this year. Yet, as reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers have finally found their first link between inherited genes and prostate cancer — a HOXB13 gene mutation.

The Details

Researchers took samples from 5,100 prostate cancer patients who were 55 years old or younger (94 families represented) and 1,400 healthy men. After sequencing more than 200 genes, they found the following:

  • 72 men in four families carried the same HOXB13 gene mutation.
  • Only one man in the control group had it.

Although these results aren’t definitive proof that the mutation causes prostate cancer, it does appear to be a factor. The researchers also found two more mutations among African men, but they need a larger sampling to confirm if these mutations also play a role.

The Big Picture

Doctors trace the risk of inherited breast cancer in women through tests that look for mutations of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that can contribute to cancer growth. The HOXB13 mutation offers hope that doctors might one day be able to test men for genetic links in a similar fashion.

Since men with the HOXB13 gene mutation carry 10-20 times more risk of getting prostate cancer before they reach 55 years old, the discovery of this gene is a scientific breakthrough. At Issels®, we search for breakthroughs like these every single day. Contact us today for more information!

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, Cancer Survivors, Uncategorized

Good News: Declines in US Cancer Mortality Reported

Decline In Cancer Mortality
Decline In Cancer Mortality

Our team at Issels® always tries to give you up-to-date cancer-related news, but one area we haven’t discussed much recently is news about cancer mortality trends.

Modern Medicine Is Working

As reported in the March 2015 Journal of the National Cancer Institute’s, “The Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2011,” which was researched by cancer experts from the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

  • Cancer mortality rates have dropped for over thirty years among men, women and children.
  • These rate declines have occurred across almost every type of cancer category with the greatest decline in deaths among lung, colorectal and prostate cancer cases.
  • New cancer cases among men declined across the country.

Prevention methods, early detection and treatment advances are believed to be the primary reasons for these fantastic trends.

Constant Vigilance Is Still Necessary

This news doesn’t mean that we should stop trying to create new methods for preventing, detecting and treating all cancers. The authors of the report discovered that:

  • More cases of kidney and thyroid cancers are happening among adults.
  • Higher mortality rates are still happening among patients who have uterine cancer, all adults with liver cancer and men with oral and oropharyngeal cancers.

Yet, in many cases, changing these rates may only require more public intervention efforts to prevent behaviors that influence cancer growth; and greater precision medicine.

We hope that this news gives you and your loved ones hope for the future. For more information about these cancer mortality trends, or to discuss our treatment options, contact us today!

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, Immuno-Oncology, Immunotherapy, Uncategorized

Kidney Cancer Beaten by Innovative Immuno-Oncology Treatments

Preventing Kidney Cancer
Preventing Kidney Cancer

Philip Prichard sought out oncologist Nizar M. Tannir at Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center in February 2013 with a massive 8-inch, 3.5 pound tumor and just months to live. Despite a previous surgery and other therapies, Prichard’s renal cell cancer had spread to his liver and lungs.

The last hope?
A clinical trial run by Tannir utilizing immunotherapy – the body’s own immune system – to fight cancer cells. The immune-oncology drugs were hoped to enable Prichard’s immune system, specifically his T-cells, recognize and destroy cancer cells that would have previously escaped detection.

The results?
Two weeks after the first treatment, Prichard’s fever, pain, night sweats, weight loss and anemia were relieved. After eight weeks and four infusions, the tumor shrunk approximately 50-60%. After two years, Prichard is so healthy Tannir must now decide if it’s time to stop Prichard’s treatments.

The immuno-oncology breakthrough?
Highly expensive, but effective drugs including ipilimumab, nivolumab and pembrolizumab that have been approved by the FDA for immuno-oncology. Though they are not a one-size-fits all option, talk at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual conference in Chicago is expected to be dominated by these immuno­therapies.

The trickle-down effect?
Dozens of studies are now underway seeking to expand on recent successes, and widen the scope of treatable cancers to include bladder, breast, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, head and neck tumors, and more. The immunotherapy drugs are also being tested in varying combinations with each other and other therapies. Early results look promising.

Today, immuno-oncology is being hailed as the fourth pillar of cancer treatment. Are you taking advantage of its miraculous results? Get your hope and your life back – contact Issels® the experienced cancer immunotherapy expert today!

Cancer Research, Immunotherapy, Uncategorized

Mainstream Medicine Embraces Immunotherapy Treatment for Cancer

Immunotherapy is Becoming More Mainstreem
Immunotherapy is Becoming More Mainstreem

A study designed and led by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York of a new immunotherapy cancer treatment is being hailed by researchers at the annual conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology as a potent new weapon in the fight against cancer. What is this revolutionary treatment? The body’s own immune system. Those involved in the study are divided as to just how excited to get over the results, however, and Issels® wants to give you the inside scoop…

The therapy?    
Cancer, unlike most other diseases, involves the body’s own immune cells gone rogue. Unrecognized as a threat, the immune system cannot target the dangerous cells. The therapy in question, however, can switch the body’s immune system back on: a combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab, created by Bristol-Myers Squibb, who sponsored the study.

How effective is it?
It halted the advancement of skin cancer melanoma for nearly a year in 58% of subjects. It has also shown promise in other hard to treat cancers, such as lung cancer and those that metastasize.

Why everyone is not 100% sold…
Thirty-six percent of patients involved in the study had to stop treatment due to side effects – stomach inflammation and bowel issues serious enough to require hospitalization. This led experts to caution treatment benefits may not offset the risks for some patients. Researchers also have yet to study the long-term survival rates for the immunotherapy, therefore physicians and patients have been advised to weigh these considerations carefully as studies of the combination continue.

Are you looking for game changing cancer treatment? Immunotherapy works we are experts in its administration to fight cancer! Contact Issels® to learn more about possible treatment options today.