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An Immunotherapy and Ovarian Cancer Success Story

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An Immunotherapy and Ovarian Cancer Success Story
An Immunotherapy and Ovarian Cancer Success Story

What happens when a patient responds to cancer immunotherapy that, according to advanced medical knowledge, shouldn’t work? Scientists are studying four recent cases where cancer treatment “broke the rules.”

Exceptions to the Rule?

Four women in different countries, who knew each other only through an online support group, were diagnosed with the same rare form of ovarian cancer. Each one persuaded her doctor to use immunotherapy drugs, despite conventional wisdom that the treatment was useless against ovarian cancer.

Against all odds, the patients responded positively, with their tumors going into remission and the women returning to their normal lives. Researchers are hoping to gain insight that will help develop cancer immunotherapy treatments with a broader range of applications.

Why Doctors Were Caught by Surprise

Tumor cells have an ability to deflect attacks from the body’s immune system, allowing them to multiply freely. Immunotherapy is a way of helping the immune system identify and kill cancer cells.

So far immunotherapy has been successful primarily with lung cancer, melanoma and forms with many genetic mutations. By contrast, hypercalcemic ovarian cancer, which is the form that affected the four women, is driven by a single mutation.

The theory is that a lower number of mutations “tricks” the immune system into disregarding the threat posed by cancer cells. Based on the positive results in the women with ovarian cancer, scientists at Johns Hopkins and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center are conducting trials with the aim of further refining cancer immunotherapy.

Comprehensive Cancer Immunotherapy Treatments at Issels®

Our individually created immunotherapy programs are often successful where other conventional treatments have failed. Contact us for more information.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Breast Cancer, Cancer Care Tips, Cancer Research, Cancer Survivors, Immunotherapy, Immunotherapy for Cancer, News

Higher Vitamin D Levels May Boost Breast Cancer Survival

Higher Vitamin D Levels May Boost Breast Cancer Survival
Higher Vitamin D Levels May Boost Breast Cancer Survival

Vitamin D has long been known as an essential nutrient that aids your bones with calcium absorption. A recent study shows that there may also be a link between vitamin D levels and surviving breast cancer.

Examining the Link between Vitamin D and Breast Cancer Survival

The study, performed by a research team from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, began in 2006 with a group of women from California who had been diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. Participants were divided into three sub-groups based on blood levels of a particular vitamin D marker.

Women with more advanced cancers tended to have low levels of the marker. Over an average of seven years of follow-up, 100 of these women died compared to 76 women with high levels. There were approximately 1,600 women total involved in the study.

In addition, women with the highest vitamin D levels were 28 percent less likely to die of any cause, once factors such as tumor characteristics were accounted for. This link was the strongest among pre-menopausal women.

What Does This Mean for the Future?

According to lead author Song Yao, overall results showed “30 percent reduction of all-cause mortality” linked to vitamin D levels at the time of diagnosis. While the study supports previous research linking vitamin D with breast cancer survival, Yao said a randomized controlled trial would be needed to determine a direct cause-and-effect.

Immunotherapy for Cancer: Going Beyond Traditional Treatments

Immunotherapy for cancer has been gaining a lot of attention recently, but at Issels® we have a decades-long history of using these state-of-the-art methods successfully. Contact us for more information.

Living with Cancer, Uncategorized

Fault in Our Stars Faithfully Portrays Teens Coping with Cancer

The Fault in Our Stars
The Fault in Our Stars

Take tissues if you go see the new hit movie The Fault in Our Stars. The story of two teens with cancer who fall in love has a few weepy moments sandwiched between the romance, self-discovery and laughs. A faithful retelling of John Green’s best-selling young adult novel, the movie faithfully portrays the emotional highs and lows of teens trying to cope with cancer while struggling to live a normal life. (Click here to watch the trailer.)

The Plot

Hazel and Gus, played by Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, meet at a cancer support group. She has thyroid cancer, is depressed and must drag around an oxygen canister, an ever-present reminder of cancer’s life-shortening reality and the fact that she is different from the other teens at her high school. He is a basketball star who lost a leg to osteosarcoma but, now 18 months in remission, chooses to celebrate life.

The Lesson

Gus’ ebullient outlook is the perfect antithesis to Hazel’s dour view of life with cancer. While ultimately heartbreaking as childhood cancer often is, their summer romance is a story of hope and overcoming fear as they plunge into life with teenage abandon. Without the specter of cancer lurking in the wings, The Fault in Our Stars might have been merely another sweet teen romance on the summer movie circuit. But the threat that cancer will bring young hopes and dreams to an abrupt halt elevates the movie, reminding us that life is short and should be embraced and lived.

At Issels Integrative Oncology even stage 4 cancer stories can have a happy outcome. Click to hear our patients stories in their own words.

Cancer Research, Cancer Survivors

Search for Genetic Links to Cancer Survival Could Lead to New Treatments

Cancer Advancements at the Genetic Level
Cancer Advancements at the Genetic Level

Researchers are taking a new look at why certain cancer patients survive usually fatal cancers by focusing on the genetic makeup of their cancer tumors. By studying these “miracle” survivors, researchers hope to discover how their bodies were able to target and kill cancer cells when others could not and apply that knowledge to the development of advanced targeted cancer therapies that could potentially increase the number of cancer survivors. Researchers believe that the key to cancer survival may lay hidden within the complex genetic composition of the cancer tumors themselves.

Spearheaded by the National Cancer Institute, Reuters reports that cancer researchers across the country have launched “super responder” initiatives designed to examine the role gene mutations play in the effectiveness of different drug protocols and cancer treatments. The study grew from a drug trial for patients with advanced bladder cancer conducted by Dr. David Solit, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Dr. Solit wondered why one patient not only lived while others died but has remained cancer-free for three years. He discovered that a rare combination of two genetic mutations within her cancer tumor made the patient more receptive to the drug treatment. Solit has since created an outlier clinic to study such exceptional responses in other cancer patients.

The sequencing of the human genome has opened new avenues of cancer research and spurred the development of targeted cell therapies using both drugs and cancer vaccines. As the cost of gene sequencing continues to decrease, cancer treatment is expected to shift increasingly toward individualized treatment programs based on the patient’s unique genetic profile.