The Immune System

This is from a website describing a treatment that is available in Germany. It makes perfect sense. The immune system is key to recovery from cancer. This treatment should be available in this country. We have to demand options for treatment.

http://immunologyfoundation.org/
The International Immunology Foundation

Applying Immunology to Cancer Treatment

Immunepheresis Program
"There is no cancer type that can be ruled out as a target for this therapy."-Ralph Moss, PhD
"In the last 25 years, immunology has answered one of the central questions about cancer – why cancer cells are not destroyed by the patient’s immune system. Based on the research of Dr. Lentz and others, we now know that cancer cells create inhibitors to shield themselves from attack, much the way military aircraft produce “chaff” to fend off defensive fire.

Using a technology akin to dialysis, Immunepheresis removes these inhibitors from the patient's bloodstream, eliciting a natural immune system response that can lead to rapid tumor shrinkage. The method has been used in human clinical trials for over 15 years, and in several hundred patients, with clear convergence of data on efficacy and safety.

Immunepheresis appears to be effective in a wide range of solid tumor cancers, though not in all patients: the key prognostic variables are (a) cancer stage and (b) strength of the patient's immune system before treatment begins.

Importantly, Immunepheresis has usually shown results that are better than chemotherapy in terms of killing certain malignant tumors. Even in patients with Stage IV disease; multiple metastases and major tumor burden; extensive prior chemotherapy; and exhaustion of conventional therapeutic options, Immunepheresis has shown significant clinical responses (i.e. >50% reduction in measurable tumor volume).

There are a number of reasons this therapy especially interests immunologists:

1. The apparent universality of its efficacy in cancers of varied types; this implies a common immunologic mechanism;
2. The high rate of tumor necrosis (cancer cell death) that can be achieved without collateral harm to the patient;
3. No “dose limiting” toxicity;
4. The relatively mild, short-term side effects;
5. The short initial term of therapy needed to confirm positive response;
6. The response rate even in patients who have exhausted all other therapeutic options; and
7. The expected lack of long-term complications such as the secondary cancers that are known to follow chemotherapy and radiation.

In theory, Immunepheresis in particular and immune therapies in general hold the potential to eliminate virtually every cancer cell in the body over time. Given the newness of the therapy, we can only measure initial, not long term response. In many but not all new cancer therapies, such favorable initial response has proven to be predictive of improved intervals before disease progression and ultimately of improved rates of survival." From the The International Immunology Foundation website.