Tag Archives: Cancer Treatment

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Care Tips, Cancer Caregivers, Living with Cancer

Cancer Treatment Fairness Act Pushed at Tennessee Legislature

Fighting For Fair Cancer Treatment
Fighting For Fair Cancer Treatment

While researchers continue to make progress with improvements in cancer treatments, it’s often financially prohibitive for patients to make use of them. This past January, Tennessee took a step toward joining 40 other states and the District of Columbia in making it easier for patients to get the most appropriate treatment available.

Senator Bill Ketron and Representative William Lamberth jointly introduced the Cancer Treatment Fairness Act in the state Senate and House. If passed, the legislation would equalize costs between traditional and newer cancer treatments.

The changing form of cancer treatments

Traditional treatments, which are usually administered via IV or injection, generally fall under regular health care benefits. As a result, patients are charged nominal co-pay or nothing at all.

Newer treatments, such as gene-targeted therapies, block the growth and spread of cancerous cells by interfering with specific molecules needed for tumor growth and progression. They also have the benefit of fewer side effects. Since they come in pill form, they are placed under a health care plan’s pharmacy coverage. The high out-of-pocket costs can force patients to discontinue treatment, even if it’s effective.

Why the Fairness Act is needed now

Access to oral medications will become even more important, as more than 25 percent of treatments in the works are in pill form. In addition to lower health care costs, oral cancer treatments have been shown to have a positive effect on patients’ quality of life.

Issels® has long been a leader in the use of integrative immunotherapy treatments to stimulate the body’s natural immune response. Contact us for more information about our special testing methods and innovative personalized therapies.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, Immuno-Oncology

Nobel Prize Awarded for Identifying How Cells Repair DNA Which May Impact Cancer Treatment

Cancer Gene
DNA

DNA carries genetic information that is essential for the development, function and reproduction of all life forms. Thanks to the discoveries of an international trio of scientists, these molecules may also provide a breakthrough in immuno-oncology therapies.

This past October, three scientists from the United States, Sweden and Turkey received the 2015 Nobel Prize for Chemistry in recognition of their DNA research. Their work focused specifically on damaged DNA, resulting in a mapping of the molecular systems that monitor and repair these genomes.

Until these studies, DNA was believed to be stable, but Swedish native Tomas Lindahl found that it actually decays at a considerable rate due to spontaneous changes and damage from external forces. In reality, this disintegration should prevent the development of life, but Lindahl’s investigation led to the discovery of the repair processes.

Aziz Sancar, a Turkish scientist teaching in the United States, explains that this information has been valuable to cancer prevention and treatment. One or more of the cellular repair systems is broken in many types of cancer, leading researchers to develop immuno-oncology drugs targeting the molecular pathways of tumor cells.

According to Lindahl, understanding these processes allows selective application of therapies for maximum benefit. Paul Modrich, the third member of the trio, has done landmark work in understanding and diagnosing hereditary colon cancer.

Our Issels® immuno-oncology protocols include genomic testing along with extensive examination of a patient’s lifestyle, environment and other relevant factors. The result is a personalized course of treatment that works with the body’s own immune system. Contact us to learn more about our innovative, state-of-the-art programs.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, News

Levitating Cells May Lead to a Cancer Cure Breakthrough

Super Charged Cells
levitating Cells

Our Issels® team is extremely supportive of any process that makes detecting cancer cells easier, which is why we are highly enthusiastic about research published in May’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences about a potential new diagnostic tool that can detect cancer at the cellular level in a fast and simple way.

Researchers at Stanford University have learned how to detect and identify different types of cancer cells by levitating them.

It’s Not Magic

When most people hear the word “levitate,” they think of magicians tricking audiences into believing magic exists by floating objects or people in the air.

Scientists have discovered that they can levitate animals by injecting them with a material that reacts to the presence of magnets. The Stanford researchers wondered if they could do the same with cells to determine if cells had different measurable magnetic field levitation profiles. As cells are too small to inject with materials without damaging them, the researchers decided to test their theory using a buoyant force:

  • They placed a channel of gadolinium-laced fluid between two small magnets and soon found that any cells that were less dense than gadolinium levitated above it.
  • They learned that cancer cells levitated above healthy cells and that cancer, bacteria, blood and yeast cells levitated at different heights.
  • They also discovered that cells that form different types of cancer, such as breast, colorectal, esophageal and non-small cell lung had unique profiles and levitated at different heights.

For more information about this astounding new diagnostic test research, or any of our currently available testing and treatment methods, contact any Issels® center for Immuno-Oncology today!

After Cancer, Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Chemotherapy and the Risk of Second Cancers

Confident doctor looking at his senior patient while speaking to her
Do you feel that you physician clearly understands your needs?

Cancer is a tough disease. The treatment options can often cause their own set of problems. This is especially true when it comes to chemotherapy. At Issels®, a center for immuno-oncology, doctors sometimes see patients develop myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). Essentially, chemotherapy can expose patients to high doses of harmful chemicals that then cause further cell mutations, creating a sort of slippery slope that can be hard to climb back up.

Despite the inherent dangers of undergoing chemotherapy, it is still a popular and to a certain degree an effective treatment. The key is to understand the risks and fully discuss your options with your doctor. If you are undergoing cancer treatment and you feel like your doctor is simply telling you what the next step is, without consulting you about quality of life consequences, then you may want to seek out a second opinion from another oncologist or a whole other perspective about non-toxic treatment options from the experts at Issels®.

Through years of research and clinical experience treating patients, we have discovered that a comprehensive approach to treatment that takes into consideration the individual patient’s specific situation and his/her own input is by far the best way to fight against cancer and minimize the side effects of treatment. Short term chemotherapy can be life-saving in the case of aggressively growing tumors that endanger a vital organ, but long-term chemotherapy inevitably damages the bone marrow and suppresses the immune system. To achieve long-term remission we need to restore your body’s own healing power. A non-toxic strategy that includes boosting your immune system, so that treatment is as effective as possible, is one of our hallmarks. Combining our expertise in immuno-oncology with non-toxic treatments may also help reduce your chances of developing other complications and second cancers.

Every patient has his/her individual cancer and specific challenges. This means that every treatment plan needs to be individualized in order to produce optimal results. Contact Issels® to get more information today.

Cancer Research, Immunotherapy, Uncategorized

Mainstream Medicine Embraces Immunotherapy Treatment for Cancer

Immunotherapy is Becoming More Mainstreem
Immunotherapy is Becoming More Mainstreem

A study designed and led by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York of a new immunotherapy cancer treatment is being hailed by researchers at the annual conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology as a potent new weapon in the fight against cancer. What is this revolutionary treatment? The body’s own immune system. Those involved in the study are divided as to just how excited to get over the results, however, and Issels® wants to give you the inside scoop…

The therapy?    
Cancer, unlike most other diseases, involves the body’s own immune cells gone rogue. Unrecognized as a threat, the immune system cannot target the dangerous cells. The therapy in question, however, can switch the body’s immune system back on: a combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab, created by Bristol-Myers Squibb, who sponsored the study.

How effective is it?
It halted the advancement of skin cancer melanoma for nearly a year in 58% of subjects. It has also shown promise in other hard to treat cancers, such as lung cancer and those that metastasize.

Why everyone is not 100% sold…
Thirty-six percent of patients involved in the study had to stop treatment due to side effects – stomach inflammation and bowel issues serious enough to require hospitalization. This led experts to caution treatment benefits may not offset the risks for some patients. Researchers also have yet to study the long-term survival rates for the immunotherapy, therefore physicians and patients have been advised to weigh these considerations carefully as studies of the combination continue.

Are you looking for game changing cancer treatment? Immunotherapy works we are experts in its administration to fight cancer! Contact Issels® to learn more about possible treatment options today.

Cancer Research, Immuno-Oncology, Immunotherapy, Uncategorized

Immuno-Oncology Heralded as a Cancer Game Changer

New Cancer Research Is In the News
Immuno- Oncology Discoveries

Finding a cure for cancer has been probably the top priority for the medical community for more than 50 years. In that arena, the development of immuno-oncology has been a game-changer, with experts referring to it as “a whole new era” of cancer treatment.

Clinical evidence

This view was strengthened by two studies presented at the recent annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology. Both involved nivolumab, an immunotherapy drug that has already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating metastatic melanoma in patients for whom other medications have been unsuccessful.

In one study, nivolumab was paired with ipilimumab to reduce tumor size in patients with advanced melanoma by almost 60 percent. Melanoma is the most deadly form of skin cancer. The other study demonstrated that nivolumab reduced the chances of death from lung cancer by more than 40 percent.

The new standard of cancer treatment?

Results were so positive that they encouraged experts’ view that immunotherapy drugs could eventually replace chemotherapy as standard treatment for cancer. Prof. Roy Herbst, chief of medical oncology at Yale Cancer Center, believes that day could happen within the next five year.

Nivolumab is classified as a “checkpoint inhibitor,” meaning that it blocks the proteins that help cancer cells “hide” from the immune system. Using it in combination with other drugs gives immune cells a better chance to do their job.

Our center for immune-oncology has been successfully treating patients with individualized therapy protocols for nearly 15 years. Visit our website to hear and read testimonials in the words of our real-life cancer survivors.