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Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy, News

New Advances in Immunotherapy Make the News

In The News
In The News

New Advances in Immunotherapy Treatment for Cancer Targeted immunotherapy for cancer Traditional treatments for cancer take a slash ‘n burn approach, poisoning the entire body in hopes of killing off the cancer cells faster than the healthy cells. Targeted therapies that seek out and kill cancer cells while sparing all others have long been the dream of cancer researchers. Some progress towards targeted therapies has been made. For example, Herceptin and Glivec have given new hope to patients with breast cancer and leukemia.

Immunotherapy is the New “Silver Bullet” for Cancer

Using the immune system to kill cancer cells has always seemed to be a good idea. After all, the immune system’s entire purpose is to seek out diseased cells and destroy them while sparing the healthy cells. What better tool to wipe out cancer cells? Of course this raised the question of why the immune system doesn’t naturally seek out and destroy cancer cells.

The discovery of how some cancer cells manage to stop the immune system from killing them opened up a whole new way to approach cancer treatments. Many cancer cells express a protein called PD-L1 on their surfaces. When T cells (part of the immune system) attempt to kill the abnormal cancer cells the PD-L1 binds to PD-1 on the surface of the T cells. This stops the T cells from attacking the cancer cells.

Nivolumab

A drug called Nivolumab that blocks the interaction of PD-1 with tumor-expressed PD-L1 is the first of the drugs targeting this pathway to make it to the market. In clinical trials Nivolumab has extended the lifespan of patients with advanced melanoma. Without Nivolumab most patients with advanced melanoma don’t survive for a year after diagnosis but with Nivolumab 63% were alive a year later, and even more remarkable 43% were alive two years later.

Nivolumab is only the first of many treatments that will “unmask” tumor cells to the immune system, allowing the immune system to do what it does best- target and kill diseased cells. Other companies have drugs in development targeting the PD-1 pathway.

Immune system unmasking drugs will join cancer vaccines and other therapies intended to use the immune system to fight cancer naturally. Issels Integrative Oncology has been offering individualized immunotherapy for over 60 years to cancer victims.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Nanotech Methods May Be the Future of Cancer Treatment

Cancer Bomb
Cancer Bomb

At Rice University they are blowing up cancer cells with nanoparticle “bombs.” Like integrative immunotherapy, the new cancer-fighting technique kills cancer cells without harming surrounding healthy cells. Experimental trials have been so successful destroying aggressive and resistant cancer cells, particularly in the head and neck areas, that human trials are expected to begin in the near future.

Cancer Bombs

Rice cellular biologist Dmitri Lapolko who developed the new treatment calls it quadrapeutics for the four techniques – nanoparticles, laser, drugs and radiation — used in this revolutionary new cancer treatment. Here’s how it works (Click here to watch a video.):

1. Colloidal gold nanoparticles filled with a small dose of chemotherapy drugs are injected into the body at the tumor site.

2. The nanoparticles are detonated with a near-infrared laser. The gold magnifies the laser’s effect which allows the use of very small doses of radiation.

3. As the laser hits the nanoparticles, they burst. The energy expansion creates a momentary bubble that blows up and destroys surrounding cancer cells, much like the shock wave from a bomb.

4. Chemotherapy drugs released when the nanoparticles explode deliver a second deadly payload to any remaining cancer cells in the area. With their cell walls already damaged by the nanoparticle explosion, remaining cells are quickly penetrated by the chemo drugs which are able to directly attack the cytoplasm at the cells’ heart, destroying them.

Cell Therapy

If human trials are successful, Lapolko believes quadrapeutics could be valuable in addressing complex tumors intertwined with critical organs. Increasingly the fight against cancer is being conducted on the cellular battlefield. Visit our website for information about cell therapy in cancer treatments.

Cancer Research, Immuno-Oncology, Immunotherapy

Could Immuno-Oncology Be the Cancer Cure We’ve Been Waiting For?

Immuno-Oncology
Immuno-Oncology

Some cancer researchers are calling immuno-oncology the cure for cancer we’ve all been waiting for. While it seems too early to say we’ve won the war against cancer, what western medicine is calling immuno-oncology and Issels Integrative Oncology Centers call integrative immunotherapy, is clearly a giant step in the right direction. Even conservative members of the cancer community consider advanced immunotherapy to be “the most exciting development in cancer care” and have been impressed with clinical reports of “dramatically extended survival,” according to Canada’s National Post.

How Immunotherapy Fights Cancer

One of many problems with traditional cancer treatments — surgery, chemotherapy, radiation – is that they tear down the body, destroying healthy cells along with cancerous ones. Immunotherapy takes a completely different approach. By tapping into the power of your body’s immune system, immunotherapy works with your body, strengthening your body’s natural defenses and helping immune cells to identify, seek out and destroy cancer cells.

“Mind-Blowing” Results

Cancer cells have a frustrating ability to disguise themselves and hide from immune cells. New targeted therapies use T-cells and Natural Killer Cells to unmask tumor cells and strengthen your immune system’s ability to ferret out and destroy cancer cells. Yale University immunologist David Hafler called the results of such treatments “mind-blowing.”

The use of autohemotherapy has also produced some amazing results in a number of patients battling late-stage cancers. Some patients who were told they only had weeks to live have found new hope as their tumors disappeared after immunotherapy treatment.

Issels has been a leader in integrative immunotherapy treatments for cancer for more than 60 years. Visit our website to learn more.

Cancer Research, News

Cancer News Roundup for July

The Latest In Cancer Treatment
The Latest In Cancer Treatment

The latest in cancer treatment news for July:

  • Rogue cancer cells in blood could help explain how tumors evolve as genes change over time, leading to new cancer treatments.
  • Study finds faulty process in muscle-invasive bladder cancer, pointing to EGRF targeting drugs as possible cancer treatment.
  • The National Cancer Research Institute points to the need for age limits in clinical trials to be more flexible to allow teenage cancer patients greater access to new treatments.
  • Genetic research identifies three rare pathogenic mutations not previously known in public gene sequencing databases known to predispose carriers to breast and Lynch syndrome spectrum cancers.
  • A new research report shows antihistamines used to treat colds, allergies and insect bites may play a role in warding off tumors.
  • Study shows men over 50 who cycle more than nine hours a week are more likely to develop prostate cancer.

Looking for more information on cancer treatment specific to yourself or a loved one? Contact Issels today. Issels offers the latest and most effective alternative cancer therapies available.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Blood Samples Being Used to Personalize Breast Cancer Treatment

Alternative Cancer Treatment
Alternative Cancer Treatment

Boston scientists are attempting to use blood samples to personalize breast cancer treatment for women with rare forms of the disease. After filtering tumor cells from patient blood samples, researchers have been studying how the cells grow and begun to experiment with possible solutions for halting cell growth. The new technique has the potential to allow “real time monitoring” of tumor changes and usher in a new era of individually designed cancer treatments.

“Tumors change, and from the time that a woman is diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer that needs to be treated to the time that multiple treatments have worked and stop working, the tumors have evolved,” Dr. Daniel Haber of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center recently told the Boston Globe.

Real Time Monitoring

The new technique would allow oncologists to monitor tumor development and treatment resistance in real time and make treatment adjustments more quickly, hopefully preventing the spread of cancer and hastening the administration of more effective targeted therapies. The ability to track such changes through blood tests could also spare breast cancer patients the trauma of multiple invasive biopsies.

When Cancer Cells Circulate

The circulation of cancer cells in the blood stream is considered a strong indicator that cancer is spreading beyond the original tumor site. Cancer cell circulation is also believed to be a primary mechanism for metastasis. The ability to track the real time emergence of cancer cell mutations through blood samples is still a work in progress. While intriguing, researchers were only able to culture cancer cells in one-sixth of the blood samples.

Visit our website to learn about Issels personalized treatment programs for breast and other cancers.

Immunotherapy, News

Immunotherapy In The News

In The News
In The News

Immunotherapy for cancer – the use of a patient’s own antibodies to create cancer-blocking properties – has been called everything from the disease’s potential “off-switch” to the “beginning of the end of chemotherapy.”

In recent immunotherapy news, Israel-based Compugen announced in July what it calls a milestone in cancer immunotherapy collaboration. Working with Bayer HealthCare, Compugen aims to develop and commercialize “therapeutic antibodies against two checkpoint protein candidates discovered by Compugen,” as the company’s website puts it.

“We are very pleased by the achievement of this initial drug development milestone for one of the two programs in our collaboration with Bayer,” said Compugen President and CEO Dr. Anat Cohen Dayag. “After investing more than a decade of extensive multidisciplinary research in establishing our broadly applicable predictive discovery infrastructure, we selected the area of checkpoint-based cancer immunotherapy as our first focused discovery effort.  Therefore, it is extremely satisfying to see our growing competitive position, in terms of both advancement of our therapeutic programs in immuno-oncology and continuing discoveries of novel targets in this exciting area, which is increasingly being viewed as a potential major breakthrough in cancer treatment.”

More immunotherapy news
On July 13, Business Standard reported that an immunotherapy treatment had been developed to treat cancer in dogs. “Scientists at the inter-university Messerli Research Institute of the Vetmeduni Vienna, the Medical University of Vienna, and the University of Vienna discovered that a receptor frequently found on human tumour cells (epidermal growth factor receptor or EGFR) is nearly 100 per cent identical with the EGF receptor in dogs,” as the Press Trust noted. Scientists noted that “due to the high similarity of the receptor in humans and dogs, this type of therapy should work well in dogs too.”