The Anderson Report on the Issels Cancer Treatment and Issels Hospital
A report on the work done at Issels Hospital in Germany on Immunotherapy and cancer treatment by John Anderson M.D.
Report from John Anderson, M.D., Professor of Medicine
Excerpt from the Report on his first of many visits to the Issels Hospital by
Former Head and Chair of the Department of Medicine at King's College Hospital Medical School, University of London, England; Former Consultant to the World Health Organization on Oncology:
There are three general conclusions to be drawn.
- Unique. The first is that the therapy routine for primary and secondary cancer carried out at the Ringberg Clinic under Dr. Issels is unique. To my knowledge it is not used elsewhere in the form Dr. Issels prescribes at any other clinic.
Based on a survey of the clinic and its patients and on statistical evidence about the survival of these patients, I am of the considered opinion that this is a new approach to cancer treatment and appears to be a considerable improvement on what is usually offered. - Pioneering. In essence the treatment is to encourage the normal mechanisms of the body which already deal with a large number of cancer cells to be so strengthened that they bring about a natural remission of the disease. Some of the cases I saw at the clinic would have been regarded as hopeless by physicians in the United Kingdom. My overall opinion is that the Issels approach to the treatment of cancer is a unique and pioneering solution to a very difficult problem.
- Dr. Issels is an able physician, a shrewd and penetrating clinician, whose principles of medicine I admire. He is a shrewd observer of clinical conditions and has probably had more practical experience with his six thousand patients at medically treating cancer than any one else. There can be no doubt that he is genuine in what he does and the results he gets. He has a good competent supporting medical and nursing staff and the staff/patient ratio is higher than that generally seen in the United Kingdom.
My overall impression is that the clinic is well ordered and fulfills the best clinical traditions of medicine. - Documented Clinical Remission. I am prepared to set up a double blind clinical trial in the Department of Medicine at King's to reproduce and test the Issels therapy regime as far as possible under the conditions under which I have observed it.
He (Dr. Issels) is undoubtedly producing clinical remissions in patients who have been regarded as hopeless and left to fall back on their own resources. I also accept that even when he cannot produce a long remission he aims to allow the patient to live out his life in a worthwhile manner with more quality than would be possible otherwise.