Tag Archives: Fighting Cancer

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy Expected to Steal Spotlight at Cancer Confab

Immunotherapy Stealing The Spotlight
Immunotherapy Stealing The Spotlight

Immunotherapy is expected to steal the spotlight when the world’s leading cancer doctors convene in Chicago in June for a meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. At center stage will be new biotech drugs designed to help the body’s immune system fight cancer. Under development by global pharmaceutical giants Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Roche, the new designer drugs enhance the ability of immune system T cells to target and attack cancer.

In previous studies, T cell therapies have produced promising results when used to combat several types of advanced cancer, including melanoma, lung and kidney cancers. New studies showing similarly promising results for advanced bladder and head and neck cancers will be presented at the conference.

T Cells: Natural Cancer Fighters

The cancer community’s interest in T cells and immunotherapy cancer treatments is two-fold:

  1. There is tremendous need to find cancer treatment solutions for advanced cancers that have proven resistant to standard Western cancer treatments.
  2. The new T cell therapies have produced only mild side effects, offering a healthier option to the often debilitating side effects associated with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.

Immunotherapy “should represent a major advance in cancer therapy and patient survivability. Wall Street is increasingly recognizing the multibillion-dollar potential for cancer immunotherapies,” Len Yaffe of StockDoc Partners told Reuters.

While it is heartening to see Big Pharma finally embracing immunotherapy, we find it somewhat disturbing that Western medicine continues to value drug protocols over natural, non-toxic immunotherapy. Visit our website to find out about Issels’ non-toxic T cell cancer vaccines and our holistic approach to immunotherapy.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Stage Four Cancer Treatment

Stage 4 Cancer: From Desperation To Hope

There is Still Hope
There is Still Hope

No other disease carries the aura of fear and panic associated with cancer. Until recently a cancer diagnosis was considered a death warrant. But new discoveries and a move toward integrative cancer treatments have pushed back the shroud of death, extending the average cancer survival rate from 5 to 10 years – and many patients are living decades longer. Cancer deaths in the U.S. have been declining steadily over the past 20 years. Today, integrative immunotherapy offers even stage 4 cancer patients real hope of long-term remission.

Stage 4 Transformation

Many stage 4 cancer patients turn to Issels alternative cancer treatment centers after traditional cancer treatments have failed. They arrive at our clinics sick and in despair. Many are too ill to walk or talk. Moving beyond standard treatments is an act of desperation — a final grasp at life – as it was for Jim Gibson. Jim’s decision to seek integrative immunotherapy for recurrent small cell lung cancer was a last resort that proved to be both life-saving and life changing. Four weeks after beginning Issels Treatment®, Jim achieved complete remission. Now 10 years cancer-free, Jim leads a healthy active life.

From Desperation to Hope

Jim’s story is not unique among Issels’ patients. We urge you to listen to our patients’ stories. Each story is a tale of desperation transformed by hope under the care of Issels compassionate staff. While each patient’s story is unique; many, including patients with stage 4 cancer, have achieved complete and long-term remission of their cancer as a result of Issels non-toxic individualized immunotherapy.

The positive results being achieved with integrative immunotherapy are leading more cancer patients to choose immunotherapy as a primary treatment. As our patient Nicole revealed in her video, “It would be so nice if I had come here first.”

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy

Integrative Immunotherapy: Cancer Treatment that Improves Quality of Life

Relax
Relax

Cancer treatment and quality of life often generally considered mutually exclusive terms. When surgery, chemotherapy and radiation are the only options, cancer patients often find the “cure” to be as painful and damaging to their well-being as — and sometimes worse — than the disease.

If the lessons of history hold true, today’s standard cancer treatments will someday be considered barbaric. Even if cancer is not completely preventable in the future, it is likely that surgery, chemotherapy and radiation will be replaced by kinder, gentler, more effective cancer treatments that do not rely on destroying the body to heal it. We are already heading in that direction.

Immunotherapy: Natural Defense

Integrative immunotherapy, which has formed the basis of Issels’ holistic cancer treatments for more than 60 years, has allowed many cancer patients to treat their cancer and enjoy a better quality of life. Issels’ unique record of complete and long-term remission of advanced cancers and cancers that had proven resistant to the standard cancer treatments favored by practitioners of Western medicine demonstrates that cancer can be successfully fought by tapping into the body’s own natural defense mechanism – our immune system.

Emphasis On Quality of Life

Increasingly, Western cancer researchers are coming to the same conclusions that have driven Issels’ alternative cancer therapies for decades:

  • They have begun to recognize the power of the body’s immune system to fight cancer without causing patients additional harm.
  • They have begun to realize that fighting cancer requires an integrative approach that attacks cancer on multiple levels.
  • They are beginning to understand that cancer patients want and deserve to enjoy a high quality of life both during and after treatment.

At Issels alternative cancer treatment centers, you do not have to choose between treatment and quality of life – we offer both!

Cancer Research, Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy the Cancer Protocol for the Future

Immunotherapy is Being Recognized
Immunotherapy is Being Recognized

It’s not exactly a new procedure – researchers have been working on immunotherapy for decades in the fight against certain types and stages of cancer – but the protocol is getting renewed interest in the light of clinical trials and new treatments that show promise; cancer immunotherapy was even named Science magazine’s 2013 “Breakthrough of the Year.”

In the past, immunotherapy has shown uneven or unremarkable results. “But as the sophistication of our understanding of immunology increased,” Charles Link of New Link Genetics told MIT Technology Review, “new strategies evolved to attack the disease, and those strategies are turning out to work in the clinic.”

Today’s immunotherapy uses the body’s own immune system – the “T-cells” – to target and attack malignant cancer cells. When used in conjunction with chemotherapy, immunotherapy may serve to shorten and lighten the chemo treatment, which can dramatically reduce the unpleasant side effects and toxic complications of the powerful  toxins.

A handful of major pharmaceutical companies have immunotherapy protocols in tests. In one early-stage trial of melanoma patients, half of those receiving high-dose immunotherapy had tumors shrink or disappear, and a year later the majority of those patients were still alive – a notable result, as late-stage melanoma survival rates are typically low.

T-cell protocols are just one of the new wave of cancer treatments that are making headlines. A form of cellular therapy, for example, trains a patient’s own immune cells to better recognize cancer cells, after which these powerful fighters are infused back into the patient. One pharma company is developing virus-based gene therapies that, according to MIT Technology Review, “selectively kill cancer cells while simultaneously making the cells better targets for the immune system.”

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy

Integrated Immunotherapy: A Safer Way to Fight Cancer

A Safer Treatment is a Better Treatment
A Safer Treatment is a Better Treatment

“When 14-year-old Nick Wilkins’ leukemia resisted chemotherapy, radiation and a bone marrow transplant, his doctors turned to the real pros: Nick’s own immune cells,” John Bonifield of CNN recently wrote on Click2Houston.com. After two months of targeted immunotherapy, Nick’s cancer “went into complete remission.”

Nick’s experience was not unique. Eighteen of the 21 other young cancer patients participating in a University of Pennsylvania study on the effectiveness of immunotherapy-based advanced targeted therapies also experienced complete remission of their cancer.

“This is absolutely one of the more exciting advances I’ve seen in cancer therapy in the last 20 years,” Dr. David Porter, Penn hematologist and oncologist, told CNN. “We’ve entered into a whole new realm of medicine.”

While some of the approaches to targeted cancer therapy are certainly new – recent advances in cellular and genetic medicine have made it possible to target specific genes and cell functions at a level not previously available – employing the body’s immune system to target cancer is a tried and true, rather than a “new,” approach. Issels Integrative Oncology Centers have been using individualized immunotherapy to treat cancer for more than 60 years! (Learn more about Issels’ history.)

Penn cancer researchers are not the only ones belatedly recognizing the advantages the immune system offers in the fight against cancer. In an earlier post on targeted therapy, we quoted immunologist Gordon Freeman of Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who presaged the Penn findings when he said:

“The immune system is an evolutionary learning system. If you can engage it and get it to work successfully, it learns how to attack the cancer. And the wonderful thing is that it works.”

Visit our website to find out about integrative immunotherapy, a safe, effective, non-toxic way to treat cancer that is revolutionizing cancer treatment.

Alternative Cancer Treatment

Exercise Tips for After Cancer Treatment

Exercise Tips After Cancer
Exercise Tips After Cancer

Going through cancer treatment can certainly feel like a workout. Afterwards, physical activity might be the last thing on your mind. However, starting an exercise program can be beneficial to both your physical and mental health.

Studies have demonstrated that increased physical activity can help prevent a recurrence of cancer while extending the life span of cancer survivors. Exercise can also boost your mental and emotional outlook, which is vital for maintaining quality of life. It helps promote production of serotonin and endorphins, chemicals that work in your brain to elevate mood and reduce pain.

Here are some tips to help you successfully incorporate regular exercise into your lifestyle.

  • Don’t overdo it, especially if exercise wasn’t a part of your pre-diagnosis routine. Start off with small, achievable goals. Your success at each step provides motivation to move up to the next level.
  • Find an activity you enjoy. Don’t feel obligated to use a particular form or style just because it works for others. Do you find treadmills boring? Try swimming or walking outdoors. You’ll be more likely to stick with it if you’re having fun.
  • Exercise doesn’t have to be formal to pay dividends. Look for little things you can do such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
  • Don’t feel guilty when you’re too fatigued for activity. Listen to your body and get some rest. Start up again once you’re feeling better.

Exercise is a healthy complement to the holistic cancer therapy offered at Issels alternative cancer treatment centers. Our integrative immunology approach focuses on a personalized program treating both mind and body. Please contact us to learn more.