Category Archives: Alternative Cancer Treatment

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Probiotics May Mitigate Deadly Effects of Chemotherapy

Probiotics May Help Lessen Chemo Side Effects
Probiotics May Help Lessen Chemo Side Effects

In what is being heralded as a “cancer breakthrough,” a new study revealed that maintaining a healthy intestine could be the key to surviving chemotherapy. As explained on NaturalNews.com, University of Michigan researchers have discovered that naturally produced cells found in the intestine are integral to the body’s ability to survive chemotherapy’s onslaught of poisonous chemicals.

The problem with chemotherapy and radiation in cancer treatment is that the patient is likely to die before he is cured. In a study with mice, Michigan researchers found that a naturally-occurring intestinal substance — called Rspo1 or R-spondon1 — triggers the production of stem cells.

The body’s building blocks, stem cells carry the genetic code vital to tissue creation and regeneration. When activated during chemotherapy, R-spondon1 triggered the repair of damaged intestinal tissues faster than tissues were being destroyed by chemotherapy, thus increasing chemo survival rates in experiments with mice. In the Michigan study, 50% to 75% of the mice that received R-spondon1 survived a fatal dose of chemotherapy.

Michigan researchers believe that since human and mouse intestines behave in much the same way, humans should respond in a similar manner. The key to making the system work is good intestinal health which is promoted by healthy gut bacteria. Probiotics, which promote the growth of healthy natural intestinal bacteria, create an intestinal environment that supports cell regeneration, enhancing your body’s ability to survive chemotherapy.

Probiotics could spark a new wave of body-boosting alternative cancer treatments. Just as Issels’ cancer vaccine program enhances the body’s immune system, increasing its ability to fight cancer; probiotics enhance the natural immune response of the intestinal tract, boosting the body’s ability to survive chemotherapy.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy Offers Healthy Solution to Cancer Over-Treatment

Cancer Advancements at the Genetic Level
Cancer Advancements at the Genetic Level

Scientific advancements in genetic research and screening tests now makes it possible to detect abnormalities at the cellular level; however, as previously noted, detection of an abnormality does not necessarily indicate cancer. Yet America’s defensive approach to cancer treatment encourages surgical removal and aggressive treatment of abnormalities with chemotherapy and/or radiation when a “wait and see” approach could be healthier for the patient. Radical cancer treatments carry their own medical risks. Given the onerous side effects of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, for many cancer patients the “cure” can be more damaging than the disease.

This is particularly true of certain precancerous conditions and slow growing cancers that are unlikely to impact the patient’s health during his or her lifetime. In such cases, traditional cancer treatments present a far greater risk to the patient’s health and well-being. Ongoing research will eventually increase our ability to determine which tumors require treatment and which are unlikely to be dangerous and can be watched or effectively ignored, but an alternative cancer therapy offers an immediate solution.

Integrative immunotherapy is regarded by both traditional and alternative cancer experts as the future of cancer treatment and the most likely avenue to a cure for cancer. Unlike chemotherapy and radiation which attack and can harm the body, immunotherapy works with the body, boosting the body’s immune system and its natural ability to fight off cancer cells. Even when the path of abnormal cells is not known, immunotherapy follows the primary medical precept: Do no harm. And increasing the effectiveness of the immune system may actually be a determining factor in preventing abnormal cells from becoming cancerous.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Targeted Cell Therapy Could End Need for Chemotherapy

New Artificial T Cells
New Artificial T-Cells

Immunotherapy is changing the cancer treatment landscape. Advancements in targeted cell therapy may make chemotherapy obsolete within our lifetime. The biggest problem with traditional cancer treatments — chemotherapy, radiation and surgery — is that they destroy healthy tissue along with diseased cancerous tissue. By shifting the battle field from the tissue level to the cellular level, targeted cell therapy aims to destroy only cancerous cells, leaving healthy cells whole and untouched.

Like other immunotherapy cancer treatments, targeted cell therapy makes use of the body’s own disease-fighting mechanism, the immune system. The immune system employs two methods of fighting cancer and other pathogens that attack the body:

  • The immune system floods the area under attack with antibodies, free-floating proteins that search out and lock onto invading pathogens.
  • T-cells generated by the immune system seek out and destroy invading pathogens.

While some immunotherapy treatments focus on boosting the effectiveness of the body’s immune system, targeted cell therapy concentrates on the immune system’s most lethal soldiers, T-cells. The cancer community is improving its ability to direct T-cell receptors to target, bind to and destroy very specific types of cells, including cancer cells.

As reported previously, the British company Immunocore has engineered an artificial T-cell receptor that readily binds cancer cells to T-cells without interfering with healthy cells. Immunocore’s artificial receptor differentiates cancerous from healthy cells by recognizing the unique patterns of small proteins that protrude from the surface of different types of cells.

Issels Integrated Oncology offers two Autologous Dendritic Cell Vaccines that harness the body’s immune system and its cancer-annihilating T-cells to fight cancer at the cellular level.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy

New T-Cell Immunotherapy Treatment Targets Cancer Cells

New Immunotherapy Technique
New Immunotherapy Technique

A British company has developed a way to harness the body’s T cells to fight cancer. An integral part of our body’s immune system, T cells are like a standing army waiting for battle orders. When pathogens invade, the body sends these specialized white blood cells to search for and destroy invading cells. However, T cells haven’t been as good at targeting cancer cells as they are at targeting other pathogens. Immunocore may have solved that problem.

Immunocore has engineered T cell receptor proteins to recognize and bind to specific cancer-causing peptides in cancer cells, killing the diseased cells without harming healthy cells. (Click to view How It Works in The Independent.)

“Immunotherapy is radically different,” Bent Jakobsen, Immunocore’s chief science officer told The Independent. “It doesn’t do away with the other cancer treatments by any means, but it adds something to the arsenal that has one unique feature — it may have the potency to actually cure cancer.”

Unlike chemotherapy and radiation treatments which have a destructive impact on the body, immunotherapy works with the body, harnessing the immune system to protect against and kill cancer cells. Led by recent cutting-edge advancements in gene- and cell-driven cancer therapies, immunotherapy represents a sea change in the traditional approach to cancer treatment that, interestingly, brings it into alignment with Issels’ alternative cancer therapies.

Issels Integrative Oncology has been a worldwide leader in integrative immunotherapy and science-based alternative cancer treatments for more than 60 years. Visit our website to hear what Issels’ patients have to say about our enviable history of complete long-term cancer remissions, including advanced-stage and standard therapy-resistant cancers.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Issels Cancer Vaccines Target Immune System to Fight Cancer

Cancer Vaccines
Cancer Vaccines

The traditional cancer treatment community has been excited by news that an experimental cancer vaccine has successfully used cells from the patients’ own immune systems to slow the production of cancer cells in six of seven patients with advanced melanoma. In explaining the procedure, Medical Daily suggested that personalized immunotherapy “may represent the future of cancer treatment.”

We suggest the future is now! While the experimental cancer vaccine developed by researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis may seem like it is breaking new ground to practitioners of traditional Western medicine, Issels Integrated Oncology has been incorporating immune-boosting cancer vaccines with similar properties into our personalized integrative immunotherapy treatments for more than 60 years.

Washington University’s vaccine used dendritic immune system cells in the patients’ skin to boost their immune response. As we note on our website, dendritic cells are key regulators of the immune responses. Vital in the identification of damaging pathogens that invade the body, including malignant cancer cells, dendritic cells trigger antigens in the immune system to multiply and attack disease; in this way boosting immune response to cancer cells.

Washington University researchers estimate that it could be more than a decade before they are able to develop a marketable vaccine; but Issels already offers two dendritic cell-driven cancer vaccines:

  • Extracorporeal Photopheresis with the Autologous Dendritic Cell Vaccine
  • Autologous Dendritic Cell Vaccine

Visit our website for more detailed information about the cancer vaccines we offer and what they do. A powerful cancer-fighting tool, our cancer vaccines work with the body, strengthening and harnessing the patient’s own immune system to destroy cancer cells. Our personalized immunotherapy cancer treatment program has proven successful in achieving long-term cancer remissions for many of our patients. Why wait; contact us today to learn more about Issels alternative cancer treatments.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Experimental Melanoma Vaccine Harnesses Immune System

New Cancer Vaccine
New Cancer Vaccine

An experimental cancer vaccine that harnesses the patient’s immune system is being hailed as the future of cancer treatment. In recently published studies conducted by researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, six of seven cancer patients with advanced Stage IV melanoma responded positively to a cancer vaccine that used cells from each patient’s own immune system to attack and slow the reproduction of cancer cells. In three patients, the vaccine also slowed tumor development.

Lead researcher Dr. Gerald Linette called the experimental cancer treatment approach “personalized immunotherapy.” Telling U.S. News, “This is going to end up being the way we cure cancer,” Dr. Michele Green, a dermatologist at New York City’s Lenox Hill Hospital, predicted that personalized immunotherapy and individualized cancer vaccines will become standard treatment protocols for cancers of all types in the future.

While the remarkable success of this experimental cancer vaccine may seem new and exciting to practitioners of traditional Western medicine, Issels Integrative Oncology cancer treatment centers have been using personalized cancer vaccines to successfully treat various types of cancer for decades. Typically used in conjunction with our personalized immunobiologic core cancer treatment, Issels’ vaccine program is designed to strengthen the individual patient’s immune system and use it to target the tumor microenvironment.

Research findings have confirmed the vital importance of tumor microenvironments in directing the regression or progression of cancer. As Issels’ 60 years of clinical experience with integrative immunotherapy has shown, the ability to manipulate tumor microenvironments has a profound influence on the outcome of cancer treatments.

Next time: Are new cancer vaccines really breaking new ground?