Category Archives: Alternative Cancer Treatment

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy Is Redefining Cancer Treatment

Flask containing a liquid.
Immunotherapy is redefining cancer treatment.

New discoveries in the field of immunotherapy are providing answers to a question that has bedeviled cancer researchers for more than a century: How are cancer cells able to evade the immune system and survive in the body? Advancements in genetic and cellular research are providing scientists with new insights into the unique ways cancer cells interact with the body’s immune system.

The immune system is the body’s first line of defense against disease, bacteria, viruses, abnormal cells and other harmful agents that invade and attack the body. When the body is attacked, the immune system mobilizes an army of white blood cells, including specialized T-cells and Natural Killer Cells, the Seal Team 6 of the immune system army.

In most cases, the immune system is extremely effective in hunting down and killing harmful invaders; but cancer cells seem to have a unique ability to clothe themselves in a shield of invisibility that allows them to evade immune system defenders. How cancer cells are able to do this is a question that has puzzled cancer researchers for more than a century.

Complicating the puzzle is the fact that when cancer cells are placed in a Petri dish and exposed to white blood cells in the sterile environment of research laboratories, the white blood cells immediately attack and kill the cancer cells. So why doesn’t this happen in the human body? How are cancer cells able to shield themselves from the immune system and how can the immune system break through that shield? Researchers are finding the answers in integrated immunotherapy.

Next time: Immunotherapy: cancer’s kryptonite

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Dendritic Cell Vaccines Are Changing Cancer Treatment Focus in the U.S.

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Cancer Vaccine
Cancer Vaccine

“When Angelina Jolie learns she has a breast cancer gene, we don’t know what else to do, so we cut her breasts off,” Dr. Susan Love, president of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, recently told USA Today. “We have to be looking for the cause.  I worry that we don’t, that we’re paying too much attention to the treatment, which comes with a huge cost.”

Interviewed about the new U.S. push to develop a breast cancer vaccine, Dr. Love was voicing the frustration many feel about the focus of U.S. cancer research and treatment. Appearing to lag their European peers, U.S. cancer researchers are only now recognizing the importance of immunotherapy in treating cancer. Jumping on the bandwagon, many U.S. university centers are exploring immunotherapy’s holistic, non-toxic approach to cancer treatment and beginning to offer trials of dendritic cell vaccines. Issels already has more than half a century of clinical experience with immunotherapy and years of proven experience using dendritic cell vaccines.

At the University of Pennsylvania, doctors recently began testing personalized cancer vaccines made with the patient’s own immune cells. As noted in the USA Today article, in the Pennsylvania test women with an early cancerous condition called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) are being inoculated with an immunotherapy vaccine following surgical removal of breast tumors. It is hoped that the vaccination will prevent tumor recurrence; but trial participants will have to wait years before they know if the vaccine is effective.

At Issels you don’t have to wait. We already have a unique track record of long-term cancer remission results using cancer vaccines in integrative immunotherapy.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Tumor Microenvironment Holds Key to Cancer Prevention and Treatment

Laboratory microscope
Cancer Advancements at the Tumor Microenvironment Level

The importance the tumor microenvironment plays in the development and metastasis of cancer is turning a new page in cancer research, treatment and prevention. As scientists work to unlock cancer’s genetic code, they are developing new understandings into how cancer cells communicate and the switches that turn tumor development on and off. At the core of many new discoveries is the complex relationship between cancer tumor cells and the microenvironment in which they develop.

European cancer researchers were early to recognize the importance of the tumor microenvironment. According to a 2010 Italian study, “Microenvironment components play a pivotal role in the regulation of the angiogenic switch and in cancer progression.” (Angiogenesis is the growth of new blood vessels necessary for tumor growth.) The Italian study concluded:

“The comprehension of biological and molecular mechanisms involved in the relationship between tumor cells and the microenvironment could unveil new therapeutic and preventive approaches to cancer.”

Within two years, European cancer researchers were conducting clinical applications of cancer therapies that targeted the tumor microenvironment, which a 2012 Belgian study called “an essential ingredient of cancer malignancy.” According to researchers at the Laboratory of Tumor and Development Biology at the University of Liège:

“The malignant features of cancer cells cannot be manifested without an important interplay between cancer cells and their local environment. … Thus in the clinical setting the targeting of the tumor microenvironment to encapsulate or destroy cancer cells in their local environment has become mandatory.”

One thing that distinguishes Issels Integrated Oncology from other U.S. cancer treatment programs is our use of integrative immunotherapy to specifically target the cancer tumor microenvironment.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Research Initiative Broadens Search for a Breast Cancer Vaccine

Test tubes in a laboratory
Research Initiative Broadens Search for a Breast Cancer Vaccine

Cancer researchers are exploring multiple avenues in their quest to develop a preventative vaccine for breast cancer. As noted in our previous post, vaccines typically target a specific virus or bacteria which has complicated development of breast cancer vaccine.

Unlike the smallpox virus or polio virus which provided researchers with a clear target for vaccine development, breast cancer appears to have multiple causes, only some of which may be viral or bacterial. For example, the human mammary tumor virus (HMTV) is found in 40% of breast tumors. While HMTV’s role in tumor development is not yet understood, at best future development of a HMTV vaccine would have the potential to prevent fewer than half of breast cancers.

Despite the complexities, development of a breast cancer vaccine is a top priority among cancer researchers who are tiring of chasing treatments without addressing the cause of breast cancer. Voicing the frustration many members of the cancer community share, Fran Visco of the National Breast Cancer Coalition told USA Today that in the U.S. “the vast majority of research dollars [are spent] on the next treatment for breast cancer. But we only see incremental benefits from all of these treatment drugs.”

To spur research, NBCC has launched the Artemis Project, a breast cancer vaccine initiative. Some of the more promising research under way is attempting to define the tumor environment, such as the role infections and proteins play in tumor development. Once again, traditional medicine is following in the footsteps of Issels’ founder. Issels Integrative Oncology already offers dendritic cell vaccines and cell therapies that target the cancer tumor microenvironment.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Search Is on for Preventative Breast Cancer Vaccine

Cancer Vaccine
Searching for a Breast Cancer Vaccine

Searching for a vaccine to prevent breast cancer, traditional Western medicine is once again following in the footsteps of renowned cancer specialist Dr. Josef Issels, founder of Issels Integrative Oncology. Since the development of a preventative cervical cancer vaccine, scientists have been searching for vaccines that could be used to prevent other common cancers, including breast and prostate cancer. A common problem has been lack of a clear target.

Vaccines typically target a specific virus or bacteria, but scientists have not been able to isolate a single specific cause for breast cancer. Certain viruses are known to cause cancer. Human papillomavirus (HPV), for example, has been directly linked to cancers of the cervix, head and neck, vulva, vagina, penis and anus; and liver cancer can be caused by the virus Hepatitis B. While there are a number of different cancers that attack the breast and scientists speculate that breast cancer is likely to have multiple causes, the human mammary tumor virus (HMTV) is evident in 40% of all breast tumors. HMTV also seems to play a significant role in inflammatory breast cancer, a rare but deadly form of the disease.

The relationship between breast cancer and HMTV is not fully understood, but the virus has given cancer researchers a target for the development of a breast cancer vaccine that would spare women from subjecting their bodies to mastectomy, chemotherapy or radiation. Numerous vaccine initiatives are currently in progress, but personalized cancer vaccines that tap into the patient’s own immune system, like those already available at Issels appear to offer the greatest potential.

Next time: Vaccine initiatives

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy Succeeded when Standard Treatments Failed; Cancer Patient Calls Issels Results ‘Amazing’

Immunotherapy Success for Nicole Tupper
Immunotherapy Success for Nicole Tupper

“Come. Especially if you’re still in the early stages [and] you want to know what to do when you first get diagnosed. Try this out first, you know. It’s an amazing option. If you’re willing to do the work and just listen to what they have to say, I think anyone will see results.” — Nicole Tupper, Issels Integrated Immunotherapy patient.

That’s the advice Nicole Tupper of Los Angeles offers other cancer patients after her successful experience at the Issels Integrative Medical Center in Santa Barbara, California. The young actress came to Issels after chemotherapy and radiation failed to successfully address the return of adenocarcinoma of the appendix. As Nicole notes in her video testimony, within 5 months of beginning her Issels treatment Nicole saw a 12 cm tumor “basically disappear” and she has realized a greater than 50% reduction in the number of tumors in her abdomen.

“It would be so nice if I had come here first,” Nicole said, “and that way I would be making the progress I am making but without having to get over the side effects of other things that I had done that were more detrimental to my system.” (Click here to listen to Issels Treatment Reviews in patients’ own words.)

After extensive surgery to remove a grapefruit size mass on her left ovary, Nicole was diagnosed with stage IV of a rare form of appendix cancer in  2009 and received chemotherapy. When the cancer returned in February 2012, she tried radiation. Nicole came to Issels with her abdomen full of tumors “as a last resort,” but it has proven to be a life-saving decision.

Watch her video story at YouTube.com or by clicking the video below.