Category Archives: Uncategorized

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, Cancer Treatment, Cancer Vaccine, Immuno-Oncology, Immunotherapy, Immunotherapy for Cancer, Uncategorized

Properties of Breast Tissue May Play a Role in Cancer Progression

There is New Hope for Breast Cancer Treatment
There is New Hope for Breast Cancer Treatment

Doctors have found some success with immunotherapy for cancer during the late stages of the disease, but the mystery of what causes certain tumors to spread has remained unsolved. Scientists are now turning to a surprising source for information about breast cancer progression.

A Matter of Engineering?

Ovijit Chaudhuri, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has been working with researchers across campus exploring the mechanical properties of breast tissue and their role in cancer progression. According to Chaudhuri, evidence supporting this relationship has been accumulating over the last 20 years.

Questions being studied by the teams include:

– How does stiffness of breast tissue encourage the growth and spread of tumors? Chaudhuri’s group is culturing mammary cells inside a hydrogel and tuning its stiffness to determine how it affects the development of cancer cells.

– How do cancer cells find their way past the membrane surrounding breast tissue that is seemingly too dense to allow passage? Currently, the scientists theorize that the cells use a combination of enzymes and force to “cut” their way through.

– As surrounding tissue grows in stiffness over time, how do tumors find space to expand?

Mechanobiology: A Complementary Approach

This isn’t the first time that scientists have sought biological information from the field of engineering. The result is the hybrid science of mechanobiology, which studies the interactions of mechanical properties and biological processes.

Immunotherapy for Cancer: Treating Resistant Tumors

At Issels®, our non-toxic immunotherapy programs have helped patients with advanced and therapy-resistant cancers achieve long-term remission. Visit our website for more information about our successful history of personally tailored and integrative cancer treatment programs.

Cancer Survivors, Living with Cancer, Uncategorized

New Research Shows Alcohol Use Increases Cancer Risks

Doctors have long cautioned against poor lifestyle choices, such as smoking, that increase the risk of cancer. In a study that may hold implications related to immunotherapy for cancer, scientists have discovered how alcohol use causes DNA damage in cells.

Harmful Effects of Alcohol on DNA

Cancer Research UK partially funded a study conducted by a research team at Cambridge. After mice were given diluted alcohol, also known as ethanol, they experienced genetic damage as a result of acetaldehyde that forms when the body processes alcohol.

Using chromosome analysis and DNA sequencing, the researchers found that acetaldehyde causes DNA within blood stem cells to break. Once the chromosomes rearrange, the DNA sequences are permanently changed.

According to Professor Ketan Patel, lead author of the study, DNA-damaged stem cells can lead to the development of cancer. This damage is sometimes random, but consumption of alcohol increases the risk.

Can Alcohol-Related DNA Damage Be Prevented?

The body uses enzymes called ALDH as well as DNA repair systems to protect against alcohol-related damage. In the study, mice who lacked essential ALDH suffered four times the amount of DNA damage as mice with the enzyme, indicating that faulty defense mechanisms increase the risk.

Professor Patel warned that even intact alcohol defenses are no guarantee against developing cancer. In addition, Professor Linda Bauld of Cancer Research UK pointed out that alcohol contributes to more than 12,000 cancer cases in the UK each year.

Non-Toxic Immunotherapy for Cancer at Issels®

Our integrative programs are individually created to include gene-targeted therapies and other treatments that address a patient’s specific needs. Contact us for more information.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Treatment, Uncategorized

One Important Step to Improving Treatment for Therapy-Resistant Cancers

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Cancer Therapies at the Molecular Level in Intracellular Proteins
Cancer Therapies at the Molecular Level in Experimental Antibodies

The use of immunotherapy for cancer has helped many patients with cancers that are difficult to treat or cancers that have spread. However, there have been certain limits on how this treatment works. In some cases, tumors have become resistant to this form of treatment. Researchers have been working on a combination therapeutic approach that shows more promise in effectively fighting cancer.

Experimental Antibody

Researchers at Stanford and Yale developed an experimental antibody that is able to target more immune cells that are involved with the growth of tumors. Current immunotherapy approaches focus on a smaller number of these immune cells, which limits their ability to eliminate cancerous tumors. While these approaches have stopped cancer from spreading in some cases, they have been unable to successfully deal with tumor growth in other cases.

The experimental antibody is able to prevent another type of immune cell, known as a myeloid cell, from contributing to tumor growth and immunotherapy drug resistance.

Combination Immunotherapy

The use of this experimental antibody along with immunotherapy drugs is showing the potential for effectively fighting cancer. Researchers have used it on cell culture models and mouse models that contain human cell membrane proteins. This combination immunotherapy approach limits the growth of tumor cells, making it harder for them to thrive and spread. Researchers still need to do more studies on this experimental antibody in order to determine if it can be used to treat cancer cases that are metastatic or more advanced.

To learn more about immunotherapy for cancer, please visit Issels®. We offer advanced programs for those who are looking for nontoxic forms of cancer treatment.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy for Cancer, Uncategorized

Immunotherapy Advances May Now Help Patients with Reoccurring Multiple Myeloma

Immunotherapy Can Expand Options for Those With Limited Cancer Treatment Options
Immunotherapy Can Expand Options for Those With Limited Cancer Treatment Options

One of the benefits of immunotherapy for cancer is that these treatments often have positive results where others have failed. Results of two recent studies show that immunotherapy has real possibilities for treating multiple myeloma.

What Is Multiple Myeloma?

Multiple myeloma is the second-most diagnosed form of blood cancer, just behind non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In patients with multiple myeloma, infection-fighting plasma cells grow out of control, causing bone tumors and chronic infections.

Immunotherapy for Cancer: A Promising Treatment for Multiple Myeloma?

In 2017, a research team from Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania conducted two separate studies involving patients with multiple myeloma that had proven resistant to other therapies.

Patients in the first study received a single dose of chemotherapy before being infused with CART-BCMA, a specific form of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy developed by Penn researchers in collaboration with Novartis. Results indicated that 64 percent of the group had a positive response.

In the second study, sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline, patients received an experimental monoclonal antibody known as GSK2857916. The drug specifically targets delivery of a chemotherapy drug directly to cancer cells. Overall response rate was 60 percent, with more than half the responding patients experiencing a greater than 90 percent reduction in myeloma protein levels.

Both treatments target BCMA, which is a protein expressed by multiple myeloma cells.

Issels®: The Leader in Immunotherapy for Cancer

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Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy for Cancer, Uncategorized

Immunotherapy Makes a Terminal Diagnosis Become Years Not Months

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Extending Your Life After Cancer May Now Be Attainable.
Extending Your Life After Cancer May Now Be Attainable.

At one time, a diagnosis of terminal cancer left little hope. Today, astounding developments in cancer treatment have created a segment of “super survivors” who live long past their terminal diagnosis.

Living with “Terminal” Cancer?

Canadian teacher Anne-Marie Cerato is a prime example of the new super survivors. Eight years ago, at the age of 32, non-smoker Cerato underwent treatment for lung cancer. Two years later, doctors found that the cancer had spread to Cerato’s other lung and she was diagnosed as terminal.

Cerato decided to quit her job and spend her remaining months traveling the world. Amazingly, months stretched into years, and Cerato has not only married but is considering a return to teaching.

The key to Cerato’s survival has been two pills a day of a drug called lorlatinib, which she takes as part of a clinical trial. Cerato’s tumors carry a rare gene reassignment, making her cancer the type that lorlatinib is designed to treat.

New Cancer Treatment Provides Hope

According to Dr. Mark Doherty, an oncologist in Toronto, clinical trials of lung cancer immunotherapy treatments have resulted in 20 percent of patients surviving the five-year point. Doherty pointed out that this response was “unheard of” with previous chemotherapy drugs.

These patients are not considered cured. Rather, their diagnosis changes from a terminal illness to a chronic but treatable disease. Doctors follow up with regular scans to make sure the cancer has not progressed.

State-of-the-Art Immunotherapy from Issels®

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Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, Cancer Vaccine, Immuno-Oncology, Uncategorized

Immunotherapy May Now Be Possible for Some HIV Positive Patients

Targeted Immunotherapy May Now Be Possible
Targeted Immunotherapy May Now Be Possible for Some HIV Patients Who Have Cancer

Even though cancer is a major cause of death for patients with HIV, their compromised immune systems have been a barrier to immunotherapy for cancer treatments. A recent study shows that immunotherapy may be safer for HIV patients than was previously thought.

Is Immunotherapy for Cancer Compatible with HIV-Positive Patients?

Although HIV patients have routinely been excluded from immunotherapy research, results of a clinical trial involving them were presented at last fall’s meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy for Cancer. The study included 17 HIV-positive patients with advanced cancers of various forms.

Patients in the trial were treated with Keytruda, a checkpoint inhibitor approved for use with melanoma, lung cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma and a number of other cancers. Results showed that Keytruda had a positive effect on the patients.

Continuing Research into HIV-Positive Patients and Immunotherapy

The one exception was Kaposi sarcoma (KSHV), a viral form of cancer associated with HIV and immune system disorders. Kaposi sarcoma patients in the trial did not experience the same benefits as others, so the study has been amended to exclude those with symptomatic KSHV.

According to team member Dr. Thomas Uldrick, further research is needed with immunotherapy and KSHV patients, but it doesn’t negate the overall message that immunotherapy can be safe for HIV patients. The National Cancer Institute also recommends the inclusion of HIV patients in clinical immunotherapy trials.

Issels®: Defeating Advanced Cancer with Immunotherapy

Our individually tailored immunotherapy for cancer treatments have helped patients achieve long-term remission, even in cases where traditional treatments have failed. Contact us to learn more about cancer vaccines and other non-toxic treatments at Issels®.