Tag Archives: Cold Sores

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Novel Treatment May Be Successful Treating Lung Cancer

Lung Cancer Treatment
Lung Cancer Treatment

Under pressure to develop treatments for recurrent cancers with a high rate of fatality, cancer researchers are revisiting old treatment strategies to see if the application of new medical techniques and improved medical technology might make these strategies viable cancer treatment options again. Repeat radiation is one of these old treatments undergoing new life.

High Risk of Injury is a Problem

Significant improvement in the precision of radiation targeting has led a small number of cancer centers to experiment with repeat radiation on Stage 4 lung cancer patients who are out of options. Re-irradiation uses high-level doses of radiation but employs new techniques to tightly target the tumor and minimize damage to surrounding tissues. Despite precautions, repeat radiation does carry a high risk of serious injury to the patent which seems to be the reason few cancer centers are experimenting with the procedure.

No Risk Alternatives for Continued Lung Cancer Treatment

Using another treatment on the comeback trail, lung cancer patients undergoing non-toxic autologous cancer treatments are achieving positive results without re-irradiation’s considerable risks. Autologous cancer vaccines that use the patient’s own blood to boost immune system function have been used with success at Issels alternative cancer treatment centers for decades. Although the use of autologous vaccines has been in use for decades, it is back in the spotlight in the wake of new discoveries revealing the complicated cellular interactions between cancer tumors and immune system cells.

Stage 4 Lung Cancer Remission Success

Despite its effectiveness among various cancers and stages, individualized integrative immunotherapy is another cancer treatment strategy that has been gaining traction in mainstream cancer medicine. Find out more about how integrative immunotherapy is being used to successfully combat Stage 4 lung cancer.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research

Cold Sore Virus Could Hold Key to New Cancer Treatments

Cold Sores Are a Cure For Cancer?
Can the Cold Sore Virus be a Cure For Cancer?

“We’re trying to give cancer a cold sore,” is how Dr. Timothy Cripe, a pediatric oncologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, explains his team’s research on viral therapy. Viral therapy uses altered forms of common viruses, such as the herpes simplex virus that causes cold sores, to fight cancer. When injected into cancer tumors, viruses trigger the body’s immune system response and serve as bull’s eyes, allowing immune system cells to find and attack the tumors. To date, most viral therapy has focused on adult cancers. Dr. Cripe and his colleagues are among the first to research its potential to fight childhood cancers.

Earlier this year, research findings presented at the annual meeting of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Switzerland showed promising results using modified herpes simplex virus to target liver and colorectal cancer cells. Scientists were successful in creating a genetically modified herpes virus that killed cancer cells without harming healthy tissue. One of the biggest problems with the most prevalent traditional cancer treatments — chemotherapy and radiation – is that they cast too wide a toxic net, killing both healthy and cancerous cells which can cause patients to suffer traumatic side effects.

Herpes simplex virus “doesn’t replicate in normal, healthy cells, so our hope is that it will help fight cancers without causing side effects in the rest of the body” Dr. Axel Mescheder of German biotech company MediGene said in a statement issued at the conference.

Viral therapy has the potential to join other successful, non-toxic cancer treatments such as targeted cell therapies and cancer vaccines in expanding the treatment horizons of immunotherapy.