Category Archives: Immunotherapy

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy: Cancer’s Kryptonite

image of cells
Finding a way to pierce the shield that cancer cells use to hide from the body’s immune system attackers.

As noted in our previous post, immunotherapy is redefining cancer treatment and providing answers to questions that have long puzzled cancer researchers. Of critical importance has been finding a way to pierce the shield that cancer cells use to hide from the body’s immune system attackers. In what is being heralded as a new era in cancer treatment, researchers are finding in personalized immunotherapy the key to unleashing the immune system’s super powers and smashing through cancer’s shields.

In studying the cancer genome, scientists have discovered that some cancer cells are able to thwart immune response by co-opting for their own use the molecular mechanisms that govern cell communication and turn on and off certain cell functions. In effect, these cancer cells seem able to disguise their biological signature in such a way that immune system defenders no longer identify them as invaders. However, by augmenting the natural power of the body’s immune system, immunotherapy is proving to be highly effective in unmasking these disguises and allowing immune system defenders to penetrate cancer’s shields and attack.

Top U.S. cancer researchers described the results being achieved with immunotherapy as “amazing,” “a game-changer” and “a watershed moment,” in interviews with the New York Times. According to the Times, “This period will be viewed as an inflection point, a moment in medical history when everything changed.”

A pioneer in the field of immunotherapy Dr. Josef Issels opened his first alternative cancer treatment center in Germany more than 60 years ago. We were among the first to demonstrate the success of immunotherapy in achieving long-term remissions of advanced and treatment-resistant cancers.

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, 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.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy

Personalized Cancer Therapies are the Future

Immunotherapy
Immunotherapy

Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation – for decades, these three treatments have represented the standard in cancer management, despite the risky side effects of each one.

Today, however, an alternative method to treat cancer is gaining attention from researchers, doctors and allied professionals. Cancer immunotherapies, including vaccines, is a therapy model based on a non-toxic approach that uses antibodies to stimulate the body’s own immune system to fight off malignant cells before they can form into dangerous tumors, reducing the rate of recurrence and increasing remission.

“The primary advantages of active immunotherapy are its relative lack of side effects, its specificity against target tumor cells and the generation a long-lasting memory response against tumor-specific antigens,” notes the National Institutes of Health.

Such personalized approaches have already made headlines in their survival-rate effectiveness in the treatment of some ovarian and prostate cancers.

Bringing personalized immunotherapy into the mainstream as an alternative or complementary cancer treatment has been the mission of many treatment centers. In recognition of the advancements made in this form of therapy, June has been declared “Cancer Immunotherapy Awareness Month” by the nonprofit Cancer Research Institute. “For 60 years, CRI has remained steadfast in its dedication to realizing immunotherapy’s potential to treat and cure cancer,” said Jill O’Donnell-Tormey, Ph.D., chief executive officer and director of scientific affairs at the Cancer Research Institute. “Because of this work, today safe and powerful new immune-based treatment options are finally available, and we are dedicated to increasing awareness and support to bring them to more patients sooner.”

Issels Integrative Cancer Treatment Centers specialize in targeted immunotherapy of cancer. We invite you to visit our website to find out more about how these cutting edge new therapies may be able to help you.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy

Cancer Report: Immunotherapy Yields ‘Remarkable’ Long-Term Results

Two physicians back to back.
Immunotherapy is in the news

After an intense review of cancer statistics and research conducted since 1990, the American Association for Cancer Research has issued a sobering progress report on the state of cancer and cancer treatments in the U.S. The report is of particular interest in light of a recent Institute of Medicine study warning that the U.S. is on the brink of a critical cancer care crisis that is expected to escalate as more baby boomers enter their senior years when cancer is more likely to occur. Despite progress being made in cancer awareness and treatment, cancer will strike more than 1.6 million Americans this year alone and kill more than 580,000.

As reported by CBS News, two key findings emerged from the report:

  1. Compared to 1990, cancer survival rates have increased by more than 1 million; but, as we discussed last time, the U.S. is falling behind in cancer prevention. According to the report, three lifestyle changes could prevent 50% of current cancer deaths.
  2. Advanced immunotherapy cancer treatments that employ the body’s own immune system to attack cancer are producing “remarkable,” long-term results without the difficult side effects that plague traditional cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation. The report notes that immunotherapies are in part responsible for the both the increase in cancer survival rates and the fact that survivors are living longer.

Issels Integrative Oncology has more than 60 years of experience using advanced immunotherapies as an essential part of integrative cancer treatment. As Issels treatment reviews indicate, we have a unique history of achieving complete, long-term remissions of advanced and standard-therapy resistant cancers. Visit our website to find out more about integrative immunotherapy cancer treatments.

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.