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.

“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.

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.