A New Hypothesis on Remission of Cancer

[mistermack]

I was stunned when I read this. This Dr. Coley was CURING CANCER with remarkable success in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It wasn't clearly understood how it worked, but he was able to induce "spontaneous regression and remission" in very significant numbers, in some remarkably advanced cancers.

But when Radiotherapy became more advanced and more available, work on Coley's therapy stopped dead, until now, when interest is being revived in some circles.
The drug companies, you can understand their disinterest, as the therapy is cheap and hard to patent. But why the major govornment funded organisations ignored it is a real mystery.
Anything that sends cancer into regression and remission must surely be the way to go, and the thing to study?

Anyway, this is a new hypothesis about how it works, it's well worth a read, four pages, but VERY interesting.

(Click for Hypothesis)

(Wikipedia Entry)
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[Tero]

I have formulated a theory on spontaneous remission based on the facts mentioned above: the patients who have undergone spontaneous remission of cancer as well as the patients that underwent remission after administration of Coley's toxins did so as a direct result of inadvertently combining starvation with high fever.

wiki
Coley's Toxins (also called Coley's toxin,[1] Coley's vaccine,[2] Coley vaccine or Mixed Bacterial Vaccine) is a mixture consisting of killed bacteria of species Streptococcus pyogenes and Serratia marcescens, named after William Coley, a surgical oncologist who developed the mixture in the late 19th century as a treatment for cancer.

Is that about it? I am trying to find some conclusions in this mass of words.

[mistermack]

Is that about it? I am trying to find some conclusions in this mass of words.

From my reading of it, Coley's toxins gave amazing results in some cases, but did little or nothing in others. Nobody knew the mechanism, so nobody knew how to improve the cure-rate.
This guy has noticed that cures were coinciding with some form of starvation in the patient, either by inability to swallow, or severe loss of appetite.

His explanation is about the release of Ketones etc into the bloodstream with starvation. It seems to be a combination of starvation and raised metabolic rate due to fever that kickstarts regression.

What I find odd is why this hasn't been worked on till now. It's not like it's medical woo. The cures and remissions are undisputed, and some were very large cancers and ones that normally kill.

I came upon this, because I was reading about that new Austalian "Saint" and how two miraculous cures were attributed to praying to her. So I looked up cancer regression and remission and this popped up.
.

[GenesForLife]

It could also be that the toxins themselves may be deadly against some cancer cells, or that there is cross-sensitization of the immune system by said toxins.

[mistermack]

It could also be that the toxins themselves may be deadly against some cancer cells, or that there is cross-sensitization of the immune system by said toxins.

It seems to be the raised metabolic rate, caused by the fever, when combined with fairly severe starvation, that makes regression kick in. They have got similar results from heating the whole body, from heating local areas or organs, or giving drip of glandular essence, ( I think thyroid ), which also causes raised metabolic rate and fever.
He thinks the fever from the toxins raises the metabolic rate, and that is the essential ingredient, combined with starvation.
It certainly seems well worth doing studies, considering that large advanced tumours were completely cured.
There was no knowledge that it needed to be combined with a starvation diet, so it worked well, but infrequently.
He spotted that it seems to be people who have trouble eating, who experience regression.
If that's all that needs to be added, you would think it has a big future.
I was reading figures of 1 in 60,000 or 1 in 100,000 cancers spontaneously going into remission or regression without treatment, so the results he got were certainly extremely significant.
His first patient to get the toxins had cancer of the mouth and throat, so could well have been starved, and he responded dramatically, and lived another eight years.

[GenesForLife]

that could work, since cancer cells have high energy requirements.

[Warren Dew]

The drug companies, you can understand their disinterest, as the therapy is cheap and hard to patent. But why the major govornment funded organisations ignored it is a real mystery.

The government doesn't have any more incentive to find a cheap, effective cancer cure than do the drug companies.

[beige]

The drug companies, you can understand their disinterest, as the therapy is cheap and hard to patent. But why the major govornment funded organisations ignored it is a real mystery.

The government doesn't have any more incentive to find a cheap, effective cancer cure than do the drug companies.

That wiki page says it's more expensive and labour intensive because each mixture needs to be made specifically to match each patient. You can't just mass produce it.

[Clinton Huxley]

Hmmmm. Dose of wishful thinking * poorly controlled clinical trials - whiff of "big pharma conspiracy" = not much really.

[Thinking Aloud]

New Scientist covered this a while back. As soon as Mrs TA remembers her password I'll have a read.

[GenesForLife]

Abstract

Original observation of patients' spontaneous recovery from advanced tumours after an infection or a "fever" inspired extensive research. As a result, Coley's toxin for the therapy of sarcomas and live Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) for bladder cancer were born. In addition, three genera of anaerobic bacteria have been shown to specifically and preferentially target solid tumours and cause significant tumour lyses. Initial research had focused on determining the best tumour colonizing bacteria, and assessing the therapeutic efficacy of different strategies either as a single or combination treatment modalities. However, although clinical trials were carried out as early as the 1960s, lack of complete tumour lyses with injection of Clostridial spores had limited their further use. Recent progress in the field has highlighted the rapid development of new tools for genetic manipulation of Clostridia which have otherwise been a hurdle for a long time, such as plasmid transformation using electroporation that bore the problems of inefficiency, instability and plasmid loss. A new Clostridium strain, C. novyi-NT made apathogenic by genetic modification, is under clinical trials. New genetic engineering tools, such as the group II intron has shown promise for genetic manipulation of bacteria and forecast the dawn of a new era for a tumour-targeted bacterial vector system for gene therapy of solid tumours. In this review we will discuss the potential of genetically manipulated bacteria that will usher in the new era of bacterial therapy for solid tumours, and highlight strategies and tools used to improve the bacterial oncolytic capability.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18063294

I so want to read the following paper...

Abstract

Bacterial therapies possess many unique mechanisms for treating cancer that are unachievable with standard methods. Bacteria can specifically target tumours, actively penetrate tissue, are easily detected and can controllably induce cytotoxicity. Over the past decade, Salmonella, Clostridium and other genera have been shown to control tumour growth and promote survival in animal models. In this Innovation article I propose that synthetic biology techniques can be used to solve many of the key challenges that are associated with bacterial therapies, such as toxicity, stability and efficiency, and can be used to tune their beneficial features, allowing the engineering of 'perfect' cancer therapies.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20944664

This looks promising, too

Abstract

The prime obstacle to achieving an effective treatment for cancer is that of eradicating tumors without harming healthy organs and cells of the patient. The concept of utilizing biological agents for delivery of therapeutic genes to patients to kill cancer cells has been under investigation for two decades, which exploits the natural ability of disease causing microbes to invade human cells. Safety-modified versions of pathogenic viruses or bacteria can deposit genes and induce production of anti-cancer agents upon administration to tumors and promising clinical trial successes have been achieved with various types of gene delivery vehicles. Bacteria present an attractive class of gene vectors, possessing a natural ability to grow specifically within tumors following intravenous (IV) injection. Several species such as Clostridium and Salmonella have been examined in clinical trials. However, as foreign, disease-causing bugs, their inherent toxicity has outweighed therapeutic responses in patients, despite efforts to reduce toxicity through genetic modification. A promising alternative exploits non-pathogenic bacterial species that have an existing natural relationship with humans. Our recent study (Cronin et al., 2010) has demonstrated that IV injection or ingestion of a species of probiotic bacterium, Bifidobacterium breve, in high numbers, results in trafficking of the bacteria throughout the body and accumulation specifically within cancerous tissue.

I will try to get back with more evidence/literature tomorrow, just 3:30 AM here, you see.

[Pappa]

New Scientist covered this a while back. As soon as Mrs TA remembers her password I'll have a read.

I can't remember my bloody password either.