Category Archives: Alternative Cancer Treatment

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

New Lymphoma Treatment Appears Promising

Lymphoma Treatment
Lymphoma Treatment

Medical researchers continue to make strides in the battle to control cancer. A Seattle-based biotech company has developed a drug that is showing promise for treatment of lymphoma, a form of cancer that attacks the body’s immune system.

Gilead Sciences has been testing an oral drug called idelalisib. It works to inhibit development of P13K deltas, a group of enzymes commonly found in B-cell malignancies, which make up the majority of non-Hodgkin lymphoma cases. A recent study was conducted through the Clinical Research Division of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, also located in Seattle.

The focus group was comprised of 125 patients between the ages of 33 and 87 who were diagnosed with indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma. This particular form, also known as slow-growing, is difficult to treat as the disease often becomes resistant to therapy. After receiving twice-daily doses of idelalisib, 57 percent of the patients saw their tumors shrink by at least half while six percent showed no measurable evidence of cancer.

According to Ajay Gopal, M.D., lead researcher in the study, the patients had exhausted all current means of therapy and several had relapsed. One of the more encouraging results was the relative lack of side effects, unlike chemotherapy treatments. The most common side effects were diarrhea and colitis, which were successfully managed by adjusting the dosage. While it doesn’t appear that idelalisib is a cure, researchers are hopeful that it will be a valuable treatment for controlling lymphoma for extended periods.

Our alternative cancer treatment center uses programs of non-toxic immunotherapy tailored to your individual needs. Many of our patients have achieved long-term remission of lymphoma and other forms. Please visit our website for more information.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Advances in Genetics Boost Success of New Immunotherapy for Cancer

Advances In Genetics
Advances In Genetics

Thanks to the advancement of gene sequencing techniques such as high-throughput genome sequencing, capable of breaking down an entire genome in a single day, a new cancer cell therapy treatment may become available to patients.

Successfully used to treat Melinda Bachini, a 45 year old Montana woman suffering from a rare bile-duct cancer after standard chemotherapy failed and resulted in hair loss and nerve damage, Bachini researched and decided to try the new experimental cancer therapy.

Reported in the journal Science, Dr. Steven Rosenberg’s team at the National Cancer Institute used a combination of cutting-edge genomics and recent insights into the human immune system. They identified specific CD4 T-cells  attacking the cancer in Bachini’s body, then literally pulled them off the tumor they were attacking and grew them in lab to later re-infuse into Bachini.

Treating Bachini first with strong chemotherapy to kill competing immune cells, she then underwent 2 rounds of this new treatment. The first reduced symptoms immediately and proceeded to shrink the tumors over 6 months. A second became necessary when the tumors began to grow back. All the mutations present in the cancer – and their associated T-Cells – had to be isolated, grown, and re-infused in order to eradicate the tumors.

This new immunotherapy for cancer is hoped to be used as a blueprint for attacking other types of cancers. Bachini’s case was the first to be treated with this personalized approach and also the first time doctors have been able to target a specific mutation in the immune system. It is anticipated further research into this alternative cancer therapy will provide additional treatment options for a wide array of cancers in the not-too-distant future.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Living with Cancer, Uncategorized

Breast Cancer Myths and Facts

Breast Cancer Information
Breast Cancer Information

One in eight American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during her lifetime. Despite its prevalence, the chances of surviving breast cancer have improved dramatically over the past decade. But old myths still abound. Get the facts below:

Not Just for Women

Myth: Only women get breast cancer.

Fact: While breast cancer strikes women far more frequently than men, more than 2,000 men are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. By comparison, more than 200,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer annually, about one every two minutes.

Myth: Breast cancer only strikes older women.

Fact: While it is true that breast cancer risk increases with age, breast cancer can strike women of any age. The median age for breast cancer diagnosis in the U.S. is 61 for white women and 57 for black women; but with average life expectancies in the mid-80s, cancer survivors can expect to enjoy many years of active life.

Better Survival Rates

Myth: Breast cancer is the No. 1 cause of cancer death among American women.

Fact: Lung cancer claims the lives of more U.S. women annually than breast cancer, but breast cancer is the top cancer killer of women between the ages of 40 and 59. Breast cancer kills more than 40,000 American women each year.

Myth: Few women survive breast cancer.

Fact: Your chances of surviving breast cancer have never been better. Early detection and improvements in breast cancer treatment have pushed breast cancer fatality rates down 34% since 1990. When detected early, the five-year survival rate has soared to 98%. More than 2.9 million breast cancer survivors are living and thriving in America today.

More myth-busters next time

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Novel Treatment May Be Successful Treating Lung Cancer

Lung Cancer Treatment
Lung Cancer Treatment

Under pressure to develop treatments for recurrent cancers with a high rate of fatality, cancer researchers are revisiting old treatment strategies to see if the application of new medical techniques and improved medical technology might make these strategies viable cancer treatment options again. Repeat radiation is one of these old treatments undergoing new life.

High Risk of Injury is a Problem

Significant improvement in the precision of radiation targeting has led a small number of cancer centers to experiment with repeat radiation on Stage 4 lung cancer patients who are out of options. Re-irradiation uses high-level doses of radiation but employs new techniques to tightly target the tumor and minimize damage to surrounding tissues. Despite precautions, repeat radiation does carry a high risk of serious injury to the patent which seems to be the reason few cancer centers are experimenting with the procedure.

No Risk Alternatives for Continued Lung Cancer Treatment

Using another treatment on the comeback trail, lung cancer patients undergoing non-toxic autologous cancer treatments are achieving positive results without re-irradiation’s considerable risks. Autologous cancer vaccines that use the patient’s own blood to boost immune system function have been used with success at Issels alternative cancer treatment centers for decades. Although the use of autologous vaccines has been in use for decades, it is back in the spotlight in the wake of new discoveries revealing the complicated cellular interactions between cancer tumors and immune system cells.

Stage 4 Lung Cancer Remission Success

Despite its effectiveness among various cancers and stages, individualized integrative immunotherapy is another cancer treatment strategy that has been gaining traction in mainstream cancer medicine. Find out more about how integrative immunotherapy is being used to successfully combat Stage 4 lung cancer.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

How Is Hyperthermia Used in the Treatment of Cancer Tumors?

Thermal Treatment
Thermal Treatment

Heat is one of the body’s primary defense mechanisms against disease. It is the reason you run a fever when you’re fighting the flu or an infection. Heating cells well beyond their normal tolerance can eliminate the harmful substances that are making you ill.

What Is Hyperthermia?

Hyperthermia, also called Thermal Therapy, is rooted in this natural defensive strategy and can be a valuable component of integrative cancer treatment. In hyperthermia, the entire body or the diseased portions of the body are purposefully heated to produce a therapeutic response.

When administered by Issels experienced cancer treatment teams as part of our immunobiologic core treatment for cancer, hyperthermia has produced beneficial results for many cancer patients. The healing technique is used not only at Issels Centers for Integrative Oncology, but also at a number of well-known university hospital centers in the U.S. and Europe.

History of Hyperthermia

The use of fever therapy can be traced back to the early Greeks and Romans. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, wrote, “Give me the power to produce fever, and I will cure all disease.”

Over the centuries, fever therapy has been a common disease treatment used by Native Americans, Chinese, Japanese and 18th century Europeans. In the 19th century, German physicians saw sarcoma regression or cure in patients who had endured high fevers from infectious diseases.

Hyperthermia and Cancer

Hyperthermia continues to be a valid disease-fighting treatment. Beginning in the 1950s, our founder Dr. Josef M. Issels administered fever therapy to thousands of cancer patients with remarkable results. There is continued and strong evidence that hyperthermia stimulates and regulates the immune system and is especially beneficial to cancer patients.

Visit our website to find out more about hyperthermia and other alternative cancer treatments.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Kids and Cancer Is There New Hope?

New Hope For Childhood Cancer
New Hope For Childhood Cancer

Cancer has plagued the world since the time of dinosaurs, and medicine has struggled to find a cure. When conventional treatments fail, however, new alternative cancer treatments may offer new hope.

A breakthrough in alternative cancer therapies
In one case of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, Emily, age 6, was given an experimental therapy after chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant failed to cure her. Blood was taken from Emily, passed through a machine to remove white cells, and returned to her body. University of Pennsylvania scientists then constructed CARTs, chimeric antigen receptor T-cells, from a modified HIV virus, using them to reprogram Emily’s white blood cells to hunt down and destroy the cancer cells in her body. Two years later, she is still cancer free and the poster child for this radical new alternative cancer treatment developed by Novartis.

Fast-tracking therapy
Similar treatments in 25 children and 5 adults with Emily’s disease showed a 100 percent remission rate, in which cancer remained undetectable. As a result, Novartis is running clinical trials worldwide, determining how to limit side effects, and readying a manufacturing plant to create individualized treatments – forecasted to be completed by 2016. Novartis’ previous success with the breakthrough drug Gleevac, very successful against chronic myelogenous leukemia, a blood cancer, is seen as a good omen.

Novartis has purchased GlaxoSmithKline’s line of cancer drugs in order to focus on cancer cures in general, and could potentially transform cancer therapy in upcoming years. Hope is that this will be an historic period for breakthroughs in alternative cancer treatments such as cell-based and gene therapies, opening a new door for not only cancer patients, but those suffering diseases worldwide.