Tag Archives: Advanced 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.

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?

Immunotherapy Offers Exciting New Direction in Cancer Treatment

Lab Technician Using Microscope
New advances are being made in the treatment of cancer.

Cancer vaccines could be the next big guns in the battle against cancer. Recent strides in immunotherapy offer new hope and promise, bringing us another step closer to the goal of preventing cancer. Numerous clinical trials of therapeutic vaccines are under way. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2010 approval of Dendreon Corporation’s prostate cancer vaccine Provenge was heralded as a giant step forward in the use of immunotherapy to treat cancer.Therapeutic cancer vaccines work much like vaccines for measles, polio and other diseases. A disease-specific peptide or protein fragment is injected under the patient’s skin, activating the body’s immune response. As the body rushes to fight the invader, it floods the bloodstream with disease-fighting T and B cells.

Since our founder, world-renowned German cancer specialist Josef M. Issels, M.D., pioneered the use of immunotherapy in treating cancer, among the greatest challenges he and other researchers have faced in developing cancer vaccines is teaching immune responders to recognize cancer cells and developing reliable ways to direct cancer-destroying T-cells to attack tumor sites. Dr. Issels’ development of a comprehensive, holistic approach to cancer treatment using integrative immunotherapy was a milestone in the treatment of advanced cancers.

Preparation of the Issels prostate cancer vaccine uses the same principles adopted by Dendreon’s scientists in the development of Provenge. Our cancer vaccine triggers the activation of tumor-killing T-cells. Antigens released each time a tumor cell is annihilated stimulate the production of new antigen populations that are already programmed to recognize cancer cells, strengthening the attack on tumors. (Click here for a visual explanation of how cancer vaccines work on the Dendreon website.)