Category Archives: Immunotherapy

Cancer Research, Immunotherapy

Fruit Fly Experiment Emphasizes Value of Individualized Cancer Treatment

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Fruit Fly Experiment
Fruit Fly Experiment

We found some interesting parallels between the Issels approach to alternative cancer treatment and an unusual cancer experiment using fruit flies that was recently reported on CBS Sunday Morning. The experiment is a last-ditch attempt by an Atlanta businessman to beat medullary thyroid cancer, a rare, deadly and extremely aggressive form of thyroid cancer.

Mark Beeninga has been fighting cancer for 13 years. His tumor has proved resistant to standard treatments, returning after bouts of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and clinical trials. After years spent searching for new treatments, Mark has enlisted the aid of a fruit fly geneticist to develop an individualized cancer treatment designed to work on Mark and Mark alone.

Individualized cancer treatments aren’t new. Issels Integrative Oncology has a rich history of individualized immunotherapy cancer treatments that stretches over more than 60 years. It is only relatively recently that Western medicine has begun to explore beyond its traditional one-size-fits-all approach to cancer treatment. Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, told CBS that personalized cancer care specifically tailored to the individual shows the “greatest promise” for winning the war against cancer.

Mark and fruit fly geneticist Ross Cagan may be taking individualized care to a new extreme. Cagan has engineered a fruit fly that is a near genetic duplicate of Mark, replicating not only his tumor, but also his diabetes and other health issues. The purpose is to bombard the fly with different treatments to find something that will kill Mark’s specific tumor.

The approach is not unlike our commitment to creating highly personalized cancer treatment protocols designed to meet the specific needs of each individual patient. Mark is still waiting on results, but Issels’ approach has already proven successful for many patients.

 

Cancer Survivors, Immunotherapy, News

World Cancer Report: Cancer Becoming Global Pandemic

The Fight Against Cancer With Age
The Fight Against Cancer With Age

The World Health Organization (WHO) has released its annual World Cancer Report and the news is troubling. WHO warns that cancer is becoming a global pandemic. In predicting a 57% worldwide increase in cancer cases over the next 20 years, WHO estimates that both cancer cases and deaths will nearly double by 2032.

It’s a grim picture made even grimmer by WHO’s finding that nearly half of all cancers could be prevented through a worldwide commitment to prevention, lifestyle education and collaborative research.

“We cannot treat our way out of the cancer problem,” Christopher Wild of the International Agency for Research on Cancer told CNN. “More commitment to prevention and early detection is desperately needed in order to complement improved treatments and address the alarming rise in cancer burden globally.”

Despite the gloomy global picture, there are glimmers of hope. Cancer risk increases with age and a significant portion of cancer’s predicted increase is related to the aging of the world’s population. However, if adjusted for aging, the U.S. cancer rate “is declining notably,” Dr. Walter Curran of Emory University’s School of Medicine told CNN. Curran credits the drop to healthier lifestyle choices.

While Africa, Asia and South and Central America, which account for 60% of global cancer, face tremendous challenges, America’s success offers encouragement for increasing global prevention efforts.

A strong immune system has proven to be a significant aid to cancer prevention and successful treatment. Issels alternative cancer treatments have achieved a unique record of complete long-term cancer remissions utilizing integrated immunotherapy to maximize the body’s immune response. Visit our website to find out more about our cancer treatment and cancer vaccine programs.

Next time: What you can do to decrease your cancer risk

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy: The Living Drug

Immunotherapy Cancer Treatment
Immunotherapy Cancer Treatment

Discussing the targeted gene therapy that has produced such amazing results with leukemia patients (see our previous post), researchers referred to the body’s immune system as a “living drug.” While oversimplifying the immune system’s complex role in fighting cancer, the description is a useful one, particularly for people brought up in the culture of Western medicine.

Driven by the pharmaceutical industry, Western medicine has evolved a largely external approach to medical practice. In treating cancer, traditional practitioners emphasize surgery, chemotherapy and radiation; treatments that are performed on the body and treat the body as either a foe or passive player in the treatment process.

But the body is far from passive. As respected practitioners of science-based alternative cancer treatments know from years of clinical experience, the body is an extremely active participant in fighting disease and maintaining health. Tasked with protecting the body from harmful invaders, the body’s own immune system is cancer’s most potent foe. Immunotherapy puts this “living drug” to good use, optimizing the immune system’s ability to seek out and destroy cancer cells and repair the damage they cause.

If traditional medicine looks outside the body for cures, then integrated immunotherapy might be considered an internal approach to the practice of medicine. Immunotherapy works with, not against, your body, working from the inside to boost the strength and response of your body’s own natural defense system.

Integrated immunotherapy is not a new approach. Issels alternative cancer treatment centers have been practicing integrated immunotherapy with excellent results for more than half a century. But Western medicine is only now beginning to recognize the body’s amazing power to heal itself.

Cancer Research, Immunotherapy

Immune Cells May Hold Key to Brain Cancer Treatment

Immune Cells
Immune Cells

The immune system is your body’s natural protective force. When cancer cells develop or when foreign substances invade your body, your immune system goes on the attack, sending specialized cells to target these “foreign” invaders.

Highly specialized immune system cells called microglia protect the brain. While examining brain cancer tumors in diseased mice, Canadian researchers found deactivated microglia. When these cells were reactivated, the mice lived two to three times longer than untreated mice with the same type of brain tumor.

A joint effort by research teams at the University of Calgary Hotchkiss Brain Institute and Southern Alberta Cancer Research Institute, the discovery may eventually lead to new immunotherapy treatments for brain cancer, although researchers say additional research is needed before clinical trials can be contemplated. The Canadian study focused on glioblastoma tumors, the deadliest form of brain cancer. Fifteen months is the median survival rate for glioblastoma patients. Even with currently available treatments, fewer than one in 20 pass the five-year survival mark.

In Medical News Today (MNT), study author V. Wee Yong, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Neuroimmunology, explained that inactivated microglia are a normal result of the battle between immune cells and cancer cells. Over time, aggressive tumor cells can overwhelm the brain’s immune system, deactivating its defender cells. Reactivating these cells can “tip the battle in favor of the brain to suppress the tumor,” Yong said.

The Canadians used a highly caustic drug to restore function to the brain’s immune cells. Issels cancer treatments strengthen and enhance immune system function using non-toxic integrated immunotherapy to avoid the destructive side effects of harsh drugs.

Cancer Research, Immunotherapy

How Do Natural Killer Cells Fight Cancer?

Fighting Cancer Naturally
Fighting Cancer Naturally

Natural Killer Cells, or NK Cells, could be considered the body’s elite fighting force. These cellular warriors form the body’s first line of defense when it is invaded by viruses or other harmful agents and when it detects aberrant cells such as cancer cells that appear as “foreign”.

Living up to their name, Natural Killer Cells attack and kill tumor cells and virus-bearing cells by bombing them with protein granules. That these attacks take place at the microscopic level makes them no less devastating. Bombarded by a fuselage of protein “bombs,” tumor cells disintegrate and die in a process known as apoptosis, or programmed cell death.

The body’s immune system is divided into two divisions:

• Innate responders, such as Natural Killer Cells, form the front lines of your immune system’s defensive force, providing immediate defense when cancer cells develop.

• Adaptive responders, which include T-cells (more about them next time), are your immune system’s occupying force, providing long-lasting protection and immunity from future attacks.

Natural Killer Cells evolve from lymphoid stem cells which originate in your bone marrow, as do all immune system cells. Lymphoid stem cells produce the lymphocytes that identify foreign invading organisms and “foreign” appearing cancer cells, so they can be targeted by the immune system. Administration of Issels Autologous Lymphocyte cancer vaccine may be included in individualized integrated immunotherapy programs to enhance immune system response and promote the activation of NK Cells.

Natural Killer Cells have been shown to eliminate solid tumors and metastatic cells circulating in the blood stream. A 2009 analysis of 129 cancer patients who underwent Issels Out-Patient Cancer Treatment at our Santa Barbara, California medical center showed an average 48% increase in absolute NK Cell levels after three weeks.

Cancer Research, Immunotherapy

New Research Finds Tantalizing Similarities between Aging and Cancer Cells

Similarities to Aging and Cancer Cells
Similarities to Aging and Cancer Cells

That cancer risk dramatically increases with age is a known fact. But why that is so has puzzled scientists. The general assumption has been that living longer simply increases our exposure to cancer-causing agents. However, a new study recently published in the journal Nature Cell Biology indicates that the very process of aging may play a major role in the connection between increased cancer risk and aging.

In studying the aging process of connective tissue cells, called fibroblasts, a team of Scottish researchers discovered aging cells exhibit many of the same DNA changes that occur in cancer cells. As explained on arstechnica.com, as we age our cells go through a process called senescence which causes changes to the epigenome. The epigenome consists of the proteins and biochemical compounds that attach to and can alter our DNA. While not actually part of our DNA, epigenetic alterations can be passed from cell to cell during cell division.

When aging cells enter senescence, changes in the epigenome direct cells to stop dividing; however, as cells age they begin to lose control over their epigenome, leaving it more vulnerable to modification. Scottish researchers discovered that the epigenetic modifications that occur during senescence are remarkably similar to the epigenetic changes observed in cancer cells. Scientists hope the revelation will take them a step closer to solving the puzzle of how cancer cells are able to continue multiplying and ignore genetic imperatives to stop dividing.

Like the tumor microenvironment targeted by Issels integrative immunotherapy, the epigenome may turn out to play a surprising role in cancer treatment.