All posts by Chris

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, Living with Cancer, Uncategorized

New Research: Melanoma Drug Causes Decrease in Lung Cancer Tumors

Lung Cancer On The Decline
Fighting Lung Cancer With Skin Cancer Drugs

At our Issels® Integrative Immuno-Oncology centers, we treat a wide variety of cancers including lung cancer. As previously mentioned, we offer this blog to give patients, caregivers, doctors, researchers, educators and students as much information as possible about new, beneficial immunotherapy advances that we feel can help patients.

As reported in May in the New England Journal of Medicine, a recent study found that nivolumab (Opdivo), a new immune checkpoint inhibitor drug that reveals cancer cells that pretend to be healthy cells to help push the immune system to destroy the cancer, is stopping the spread of melanoma and lung cancers almost two times better than ipilimumab (Yervoy).

Side Effects

Side effects with all immunotherapy drug treatments continue to be a problem for as many as 70 to 80 percent of patients. These two drugs were no different. Both caused side effects and the effects increased when the drugs were tested in combination.

Positive Outcomes

Researchers believe the outstanding results outweigh any side effects given there were no deaths during a trial that focused on 945 patients who had advanced and untreated melanoma. Best yet:

  • Patients who received nivolumab experienced a 7-month disease slowdown and a 34 percent tumor reduction versus a 3-month ipilimumab slowdown and 6 percent tumor reduction.
  • Combining both drugs resulted in a 11.5-month slowdown and a 52-percent reduction.

We believe at Issels® that the discovery of nivolumab (Opdivo) as a lung cancer treatment option, and the discovery of the higher effectiveness of the drug when used in combination with ipilimumab (Yervoy), represent incredible breakthroughs in immunotherapy and non-toxic treatment solutions. Contact us today for more information or to schedule an appointment.

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

Chemotherapy Takes a Back Seat to Immunotherapy for One Patient

Fighting Cancer
Fighting Cancer

Who could testify to the benefits of immunotherapy with more credibility than an actual patient? Philip Pritchard of Memphis was diagnosed with renal cell cancer. Thanks to treatment with immunotherapy drug nivolumab, Pritchard has seen all traces of the disease virtually disappear.

Pritchard’s battle with cancer

Even after undergoing surgery and other treatments, Pritchard’s cancer had metastasized to his liver and lungs. An eight-inch, three-and-a-half pound tumor had been removed from his kidney. Pritchard had only months to live when he came under the care of oncologist Nizar M. Tannir at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Implementation of immunotherapy

Pritchard became one of the patients in Tannir’s clinical trial of nivolumab. The first signs came within two weeks, when Pritchard stopped suffering from  the cancer’s side effects like pain, night sweats and anemia. Four infusions over eight weeks led to a 50-60 percent reduction in the size of the main tumor.

That was in early 2013. Today, two years later, 50-year-old Pritchard has regained his health to such an extent that Tannir is considering the end of medication.

How do these immunotherapy drugs work?

Cancer cells have an innate ability to avoid the body’s T-cells, which are sent out by the immune system to attack foreign elements. Nivolumab and the other immunotherapy drugs are “checkpoint inhibitors” that remove the “brakes” keeping T-cells from doing their job.

Our Center for Immuno-Oncology creates a personalized therapy protocol using information about your genetics, lifestyle and environment. We work with patients diagnosed with all types and stages of cancer. Contact us today to learn more about our comprehensive treatment programs.

Cancer Research, Immuno-Oncology, Immunotherapy, Uncategorized

Immuno-Oncology Heralded as a Cancer Game Changer

New Cancer Research Is In the News
Immuno- Oncology Discoveries

Finding a cure for cancer has been probably the top priority for the medical community for more than 50 years. In that arena, the development of immuno-oncology has been a game-changer, with experts referring to it as “a whole new era” of cancer treatment.

Clinical evidence

This view was strengthened by two studies presented at the recent annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology. Both involved nivolumab, an immunotherapy drug that has already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating metastatic melanoma in patients for whom other medications have been unsuccessful.

In one study, nivolumab was paired with ipilimumab to reduce tumor size in patients with advanced melanoma by almost 60 percent. Melanoma is the most deadly form of skin cancer. The other study demonstrated that nivolumab reduced the chances of death from lung cancer by more than 40 percent.

The new standard of cancer treatment?

Results were so positive that they encouraged experts’ view that immunotherapy drugs could eventually replace chemotherapy as standard treatment for cancer. Prof. Roy Herbst, chief of medical oncology at Yale Cancer Center, believes that day could happen within the next five year.

Nivolumab is classified as a “checkpoint inhibitor,” meaning that it blocks the proteins that help cancer cells “hide” from the immune system. Using it in combination with other drugs gives immune cells a better chance to do their job.

Our center for immune-oncology has been successfully treating patients with individualized therapy protocols for nearly 15 years. Visit our website to hear and read testimonials in the words of our real-life cancer survivors.

Cancer Care Tips, Cancer Research, News, Uncategorized

T-Cells Take Center Stage in This Cancer Treatment Protocol

Cancer Gene
T- Cells Take Over

Being told you have cancer is hard to hear from your doctor. Fighting it is harder. Here at Issels®, we respect how difficult it is for you and we do anything we can to help you in your battle. Sometimes that means researching new treatments that can potentially save your life.

An article in Science Mag talks about one of these new treatments. Researchers have tested new cancer drugs that can help improve your immune system. In clinical trials of these drugs on patients with melanoma or lung cancer that were given a poor prognosis, these drugs were able to improve the prognosis in many of the participants. They were useless in patients with colon cancer with the exception of one man, who, after being treated in 2007, showed no sign of his metastatic tumors for several years.

This new drug is an antibody that blocks a receptor on the immune system’s T-cells called PD-1. When tumor cells activate the PD-1 receptor, they can hide T-cells. If this “checkpoint” is blocked by a PD-1 inhibitor, the T-cells can see the tumor cells and attack them. Researchers hypothesize that melanoma and lung cancer respond so well to PD-1 inhibitors because of their multiple mutations. The mutations may alter genes, causing small stretches of abnormal proteins. The immune system tends to see these as unfamiliar proteins, or antigens. The more of these “neoantigens” there are, the greater an attack from T-cells unleashed from a PD-1 inhibitor.

For more on this new research, go to Science Mag to read the full article.

If you have questions about immunotherapy treatments we use at Issels®, come visit our website today.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, Immunotherapy, Uncategorized

First Ever Immunotherapy for Cancer Conference Schedule for September 2015

First Ever Conference
First Ever Conference

If you have been uncertain about the future of immuno-oncology, you have merely to look at the sudden increase in research studies and events related to the topic happening around the world. At Issels® Integrated Immuno-Oncology, we remain dedicated to keeping up-to-date with current advances.

This year marks the first conference ever dedicated to discussion about the future of immunotherapy as a survival option for cancer treatment. “The Inaugural International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival,” sponsored by the Association for Cancer Immunotherapy, the American Association for Cancer Research, the European Academy of Tumor Immunology and the Cancer Research Institute, will be hosted at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel in New York City in the United States from September 16th to the 19th. It is being referred to as a point of reference, educational and networking meeting for everyone who is currently working in this area, including patient advocates, doctors, scientists, drug developers and regulators. According to the AACR, the conference is planned as a biennial event. The 2017 event will be hosted somewhere in Europe.

Leaders in cancer immunotherapy science and treatments will be giving over 60 talks about a wide range of topics, including biomarkers, checkpoint blockade inhibitors, combination therapies, genomic methods for identifying tumor antigens, tumor microenvironments, the microbiome, T-cell responsiveness and related therapies.

At Issels®, we are excited that immunotherapy is finally receiving the recognition it deserves as a non-toxic and personalized cancer treatment option. For more information about how this event will help improve your current treatments, or to schedule an appointment for an immunotherapy treatment plan evaluation at one of our Issels® centers, contact us today!

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, Immunotherapy, Uncategorized

The New Focus on Immunotherapy Drugs for Cancer Treatment

Hypothermia To Fight Cancer?
Focusing On Immunotherapy

No single cure-all cancer immunotherapy drug exists at this time. Instead, modern medicine offers several FDA approved single and combination drug options.

What do they do to the body?

As outlined in the Vox article “Is Cancer Immunotherapy Really a Miracle Cure?,” these treatments prompt a person’s immune system to destroy cancer cells when it will not do so on its own. Immuno-oncology research began as early as the 1890s when Dr. William Coley discovered he could shrink tumors in some patients by injecting bacteria directly into their tumors.

Immuno-oncology was mostly ignored for over a century because of more evident successes in surgical, radiation and chemo therapies. Yet, many researchers now believe it could be the key to curing cancers. Modern technologies have helped us better understand at the cellular level how cancer forms and spreads and how the body responds to different treatments.

Are there risks?

Every treatment available poses risks. Like chemotherapy, immunotherapy drugs have toxic side effects and can even cause adverse immune system reactions. Currently, these immunotherapy drugs do benefit many patients.

  • Their immune systems destroy targeted cancer cells and tumors.
  • They receive remission benefits for months longer than other treatments.
  • Some receive benefits for years longer.

Researchers are only beginning to understand how they can use modified viruses to prompt the immune system to work harder and more efficiently. As the article outlines, their biggest challenge is determining who will benefit and how to create new treatments for everyone else.

If you have exhausted all other options, our personalized Issels immunotherapy with non-toxic vaccine and cell therapies prepared from your own immune cells could turn everything around.