Category Archives: Immunotherapy

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.

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.

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.”

Immunotherapy, Living with Cancer

Immunotherapy Offers Improved Quality of Life During and After Cancer Treatment

1 Comment
Advancement In Immunotherapy
Advancement In Immunotherapy

Cancer treatment should not just be about living longer. Your quality of life both during and after cancer treatment should be of equal concern both to you as a cancer patient and to the team of specialists that are directing your treatment. Its focus on improving the patient’s quality of life is one of the benefits of integrative immunotherapy that sets this alternative method of cancer treatment apart from traditional treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.

What Immunotherapy Does

Immunotherapy taps into the power of your body’s own immune system, activating your body’s natural defenses against disease. Unlike traditional cancer treatments that destroy healthy cells along with cancerous cells, immunotherapy acts with your body to strengthen your immune system and healthy cells while targeting cancerous tumors and the tumor microenvironments that affect their growth and spread. What that means for many cancer patients is no unpleasant toxic side effects, an often faster recovery and a better quality of life during and after treatment.

“Very Exciting” Results

Cancer researchers new to immunotherapy have called its impact “very, very exciting.” As chronicled in the New York Daily News, a woman in the late stages of cervical cancer saw her tumors disappear and now shows no signs of cancer after undergoing an immunotherapy procedure similar to Issels autologous cancer vaccine. In the procedure, immune cells from the woman’s blood were multiplied in the lab and infused back into her blood stream with amazing results. The woman called the procedure “like Gatorade for the cells.”

Thanks to immunotherapy, this woman is one of many who are enjoying complete and long-term cancer remission. Find out more on our website.

Immunotherapy, Living with Cancer

Using Your Own Immune Cells to Fight Cancer

Immune Cells
Immune Cells

In several research studies that employed a cancer patient’s own immune cells against her cancer, news reports have called the results “unprecedented” and “miraculous.” If researchers seem surprised by the power of the body’s own immune system to fight cancer, it is because the mainstream Western cancer community has only recently begun to recognize and harness the considerable cancer-fighting benefits of alternative cancer treatments such as immunotherapy.

Immunotherapy Results

Called a “game-changer,” immunotherapy is producing some truly amazing results:

  • Her tumors “melted away.” A woman with a deadly form of cancer that had metastasized to her bile duct, liver and lungs despite traditional treatment saw her tumors “melt away” after immunotherapy. Researchers identified tumor-invading T cells in her immune system that would attack a critical mutation in her cancer cells. Billions of these T cells were manufactured in the lab and infused into her bloodstream. While the woman’s cancer has not disappeared, her tumors are shrinking at an amazing rate and she is hopeful for the first time in years.
  • Cancer-free in 5 months. Another woman whose body was riddled with tumors from metastasized cervical cancer now appears to be cancer-free after a similar immunotherapy treatment. After isolating the immune system cells that were attacking her tumors, researchers multiplied the cells in the lab and infused billions of them back into her body. Just five months after treatment, the woman’s cancer scans started coming back clean and have remained cancer-free for 17 months and counting.

Issels Integrative Oncology has 60 years experience using immunotherapy to fight cancer. Call our alternative cancer treatment centers for information about our T cell treatments and immune system-boosting cancer vaccines.

 

Cancer Research, Immunotherapy

What Is the Immunobiologic Core Treatment?

Immune System Building
Immune System Building

Issels immunobiologic core treatment for cancer is grounded in two cancer truths:

Truth #1: The Immune System Must Be Engaged

Cancer is not a one note disease that can be stopped with an antibiotic. Cancer is a symphony of diseases that affect the body in myriad ways. Cancer’s complexity is the reason traditional treatment methods often fail to achieve complete, long-term remission.

Researchers have begun to recognize what Issels cancer specialists have known for decades: The most effective cancer treatment results come from engaging the immune system to battle cancer cells. Unlike surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation which destroy healthy cells along with cancer cells immunotherapy works with the body, strengthening and supporting the body’s natural defense system.

Heralded by new Western medicine converts as “a whole new realm of medicine” and the “cancer protocol for the future,” integrative immunotherapy promotes the use of multiple beneficial therapies to bolster the immune system, enabling the body’s natural ability to destroy cancer tumors and the surrounding tumor microenvironment that drives cancer’s growth and spread.

Truth #2: Each Patient’s Biology Is Unique

The words “standard treatment” have no real meaning where cancer is concerned. Each cancer patient’s biology is unique. Differences in inherited genetic predisposition, medical history, environmental exposure, and lifestyle choices play important roles in an individual patient’s response to cancer and cancer treatment.

Issels cancer treatment centers use exacting testing methods, including genomic testing, to develop comprehensive treatment strategies that are personalized to meet the specific needs of each individual patient.

It is our ability to tailor immunotherapy to each patient’s unique biologic needs that has made our immunobiologic core treatment so successful for many cancer patients.