Living with Cancer

Immunotherapy May Improve Adult Outcomes for Childhood Cancer Survivors

From Childhood to Being an Adult: Cancer Problems
From Childhood to Being an Adult: Cancer Problems

One in every 640 adults between the ages of 20 and 39 is a childhood cancer survivor, according to the U.S. Institute of Medicine. About 70% of those cancer survivors will experience serious, life-altering health problems as adults that are directly related to their cancer battle and, more often, the cancer treatment they underwent decades ago. To these childhood cancer survivors it seems a cruel twist of fate that cancer up-ends their lives not once, but twice.

A recent University of Florida study on the long-term effects of childhood cancer found that many survivors suffer physical, mental or social effects as adults that can drastically impair daily function and quality of life. Working with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Florida researchers analyzed data from 1,667 childhood cancer survivors.

According to a report on Medical News Today, “The most common symptoms the survivors reported were head pain, back and neck pain, pain in other parts of the body, sensation abnormalities, and disfigurement” (such as hair loss). Other symptoms included heart problems, lung problems, mobility issues, learning and memory issues, depression and anxiety. Seventy percent of childhood cancer survivors reported at least one negative adult-onset symptom with 25% reporting six or more. With each additional symptom, survivors reported a noticeable decrease in their quality of life.

It is possible that using integrated immunotherapy to bolster the immune system during and after childhood cancer treatment, either as a primary treatment or with traditional treatment may decrease adult-onset symptoms for childhood cancer survivors. There may also be benefit in continuing immunotherapy treatments beyond initial cancer treatment to optimize immune system benefits throughout life.

 

Cancer Survivors, Living with Cancer

Childhood Cancer Survivors at Risk of Adult Health Problems

Childhood Cancer
Childhood Cancer

In 2003, the U.S. Institute of Medicine released a report on the special challenges faced by childhood cancer survivors after they entered their adult years. While citing a remarkable 78% improvement in survival rates since 1970, the report noted that, “More than two-thirds of childhood cancer survivors will face complications, disabilities or adverse outcomes directly related to their cancer, its treatment or both.”

As we’ve been discussing in social media lately, childhood cancer survivors frequently face serious medical problems and chronic illnesses during their adult years that can significantly diminish their quality of life and even decrease their life expectancy. A new movement designed to call attention to the unique challenges faced by survivors of childhood and adolescent cancer is building steam. The Society of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology (SAYAO) recently held its first annual meeting at the University of California at Irvine with the goal of building awareness and improving the quality of life for childhood cancer survivors.

Not long ago, we reported on a new St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital study that linked the use of chemotherapy to treat childhood cancers to the survivors’ development of chronic, life threatening diseases during their adult years. Increasing the severity of the threat, the St. Jude’s study found that 90% of the heart conditions and 55% of the lung problems that childhood cancer survivors developed went undetected until the condition had reached an advanced stage.

SAYAO is calling on the cancer community to address the long-term issues of cancer survival. Non-toxic immunotherapy treatment at an alternative cancer treatment center may offer an important avenue not only to effective initial treatment but also to improved lifelong outcomes.

Cancer Research, Uncategorized

WHO Predicts Worldwide Cancer Increase

Cancer Research
Cancer Research

Researchers are making progress in combating cancer, particularly in the United States and other industrialized nations where medical treatment is readily available. But in the rest of the world, cancer is on the rise, according to a new report by the World Health Organization (WHO). As developing countries adopt modern lifestyles, cancer rates are increasing. According to WHO, cancer cases worldwide could surpass 19 million by 2025.

Between 2008 and 2012, cancer diagnoses worldwide grew from 12.7 million to more than 14 million and deaths from cancer rose from 7.6 to 8.2 million. By the end of the next decade, WHO expects the number of people diagnosed with cancer to begin approaching the 20 million mark, which would be a significant jump over the current worldwide cancer growth rate.

As developing countries become more industrialized, smoking, obesity and longer life spans are contributing to an increased risk of cancer, according to a BBC News health report. Lung cancer, primarily from cigarette smoking, poses the greatest risk, accounting for 13% of total cancer cases, or about 1.8 million diagnoses, worldwide. WHO also cited a significant rise in the global number of breast cancer cases; noting that breast cancer has become the most common cancer among women in 140 countries.

“Breast cancer is also a leading cause of cancer death in the less developed countries of the world. This is partly because a shift in lifestyles is causing an increase in incidence and partly because clinical advances to combat the disease are not reaching women living in these regions,” Dr. David Forman of WHO’s International Agency for Research told BBC News.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Spermbots: The Future of Targeted Cancer Treatment?

Alternative Cancer Treatments
Alternative Cancer Treatments

One of the greatest challenges in targeted cancer therapy is achieving accurate delivery of the beneficial agent directly to the cancer cells you wish to affect. Researchers at the Institute for Integrative Nanoscience in Dresden, Germany are working on a novel solution to the problem. They are attempting to turn sperm cells into cancer treatment delivery agents.

The Germans were trying to build biobots, microscopic robots that could be controlled and directed from outside the body while surviving inside the body without damaging or being rejected by their host. After experimenting with numerous biologic materials, Discover Magazine recently reported that the researchers found a winner in sperm – specifically, the sperm from bulls (yes, the farm animal).

Strong and agile, modified sperm, called “spermbots” by the Germans, were able to deliver the propulsion the scientists desired. The ability to direct the sperm cells’ movement was achieved by exposing the sperm cells to a magnetic field in the laboratory and then using magnets to provide directional guidance. As explained in Discover Magazine, “It’s like a remote-control robot where the sperm start the engines and the researchers provide the navigation.”

While the research appears to have the greatest immediate potential for developing an in vivo, or inside the body, alternative to in vitro fertilization; the German scientists believe that human sperm cells could someday be used to deliver medicine and other beneficial agents directly to the body’s cells, potentially opening a new pathway for the delivery of advanced targeted cancer therapies. Even more boldly, they imagine a day when spermbots might be directed to “drill” into cancerous cells and actually cure cancer!

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

New Study: Many U.S. Lung Cancer Patients Are Undergoing Unnecessary Treatment

Lung Cancer
Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. for both men and women, killing more than 150,000 people a year. According to the American Lung Association, lung cancer is responsible for 28% of all cancer deaths, surpassing the combined fatality rate of the next three most common cancers: colon, breast and prostate cancer.

The high threat of fatality has made aggressive treatment of all lung cancers standard practice in the United States. A new study that is being labeled “provocative,” by the American press, indicates that many lung cancer patients have endured painful surgery, chemotherapy and radiation needlessly. According to the Duke University Medical Center study, nearly 1 in 5 lung tumors detected by CT scans are too slow-growing to warrant treatment, much less the radical treatment that has become standard procedure among practitioners of Western medicine.

As Dr. Len Litchtenfeld of the National Cancer Institute explained to USA Today, the Duke study suggests that for every 10 lives saved by CT lung cancer screening, about 14 people will have been diagnosed with a lung cancer that does not require radical treatment. What that means is that 3 out of every 5 people diagnosed with lung cancer are likely to suffer through the pain, suffering, worry and expense of cancer surgery, chemotherapy and/or radiation treatments that may be unnecessary.

For patients with slow-growing lung cancers, the study suggests that refusing to undergo invasive treatments would not alter the patient’s health or life expectancy in any noticeable way. Integrated immunotherapy offers many lung cancer patients a welcome, non-toxic treatment option. Visit our website to find out more about our non-toxic cancer treatments.

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.

Individualized Cancer Treatment