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Anybody know anything about North Central Mississippi Regional Cancer Center -- Dr. Arnold Smith -- Cancernet ??? Immunotherapy? We are considering a visit.
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Immunotherapy
- By REG
- Posted October 13, 2009 at 12:32 am · 2 replies
- In Treatment options
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- By cards7up
- Posted October 13, 2009 at 6:36 am
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I don't know about this specific doctor, but I've read about immunotherapy. It can't hurt to check it out. I'd call first before making the trip. Is your husband taking folic acid? This helps with side effects and building the immune system and also B12 shots. You can get these from his doctor. Let us know how you make out. Take care, JC
- By gpawelski
- Posted October 13, 2009 at 10:50 am
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Likewise to what cards7up said, it can't hurt to check it out. Immune therapies seem to finally be working against cancer.
A paradox of tumor immunology is that so-called immune surveillance against cancer is a real and important phenomenom. Cancer is much more common in immunosuppressed people.
Is the cancer a result of immunosuppression or does the cancer occur as a result of the same thing which caused the immunosuppression? The immune system is obviously very important, and major efforts should be made to harness the immune system in cancer therapy. It is a natural approach to cancer therapy.
In the 1960s, tumor immunology was probably the hottest field in cancer research. Then, once again, in the early 1980s, with the work of Rosenberg at the NCI with IL-2 and "LAK" and "TIL" cells. But, despite enormous efforts, it remained true that probably for every cancer patient cured with immunotherapy, a thousand had been cured with regular old toxic chemotherapy. That's what's paradoxical.
On such tumor immunotherapy study that was prematurely abandoned during the early 90's was a concept of in situ cancer vaccination based upon studies of biologic response modifiers in an assay. Preliminary results found a striking association between the activity of biologic response modifiers which activate macrophages and the prior treatment status of patients with breast and ovarian cancers.
Effective chemotherapy produced a massive release and processing of tumor antigens, which led to a state in which the human immune system, via in situ cancer vaccination, responded to exogenous macrophage activation signals with potent and specific anti-tumor effects.
It's good to see the resurgence of aggressive cancer vaccine research. The choice of researchers to integrate promising insights and methods remains an essential component of new paradigms of cancer treatment.
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