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Cancer Resistance Technique Moves To Human Trials
TaeKwonDood tips us to news that a new cancer resistance treatment is going into clinical trials after being quite successful at eradicating cancer in mice. Researchers discovered that certain white blood cells called granulocytes from cancer-immune mice were able to cure cancer in other mice. Now, doctors are putting out the call for healthy granulocyte donors in order to test how well it works on humans. The article quotes lead researcher Zheng Cui saying, "In mice, we've been able to eradicate even highly aggressive forms of malignancy with extremely large tumors. Hopefully, we will see the same results in humans. Our laboratory studies indicate that this cancer-fighting ability is even stronger in healthy humans."
This strikes me as a kind of fast-track immunization, i.e. getting the relevant antibodies into a person's immune system quickly before an infection can take hold. Rather than having to spend time developing the relevant treatment, simply borrow from another human who already has the necessary lymphocytes. Nice!
I'm aware of the correlation between infection and various cancers - I had Hodgkins Lymphoma a few years ago myself.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Definitely glad to see this story. It's the first of a number of techniques to reach clinical trials that actually show real promise.
I don't qualify as a patient participant as I still respond to conventional therapy. Hopefully they'll still be conducting trials if that changes, or will have expanded them to include patients who are still being treated conventionally.
It'll definitely be interesting to see the results if they expand trials to include patients with aggressive tumors. The patient requirements, while not explicitly saying so, eliminate consideration of such patients. Once you no longer respond to therapy treating an aggressive cancer, the likelihood of having a > 6 month survival rating is basically nil (thus disqualifying you from the study). I can understand the rationale to not unnecessarily skew the initial trial results when they can get good data from patients with less aggressive cancers, but if/when the trials go after the fast killers it will definitely show the true potential of this particular cancer weapon.
Here's to hoping for positive results. The other nice thing about this therapy is that, since it is not drug-based, it is not locked up by one single pharmaceutical company. Hooray for open source medical therapies.
People who protest against using animals for testing new drugs or therapies would be well advised to take note of how this advance relied on years of animal research. While unnecessary cruelty to animals is to be abhorred (and yes there may be times when suffering is necessary) this shows that the rewards may be significant.
It's interesting that (much of) the scientific community and christian fundamentalists agree upon this point. It's due to the christian fundamentalists' view that God gave Man dominion over all the animals; not because of any appreciation or understanding on their part of the scientific method.
Recently, several people, in clinical trials, have been cured!! from metastatic (widespread) malignant melanoma - which is usually a 1-2 year death sentence after it has metastasized.
Many childhood leukemias have a 80% survival rate, whereas 30 years ago it was a 80% death rate.
Osteogenic and Ewings sarcoma (primary bone cancers) now has an 80% 5 year survival rate, 20 years ago it was a 20% 5 year survival rate. Now, 90-95% of the kids I operate on now get to keep their arms and legs with artificial bones. 30 years ago, they mostly had amputations.
Much of the advances have been from improved detection (MRI/CT/PET scans), and newer chemotherapies - ALL which have been based on animal research (F U PETA!)
Many scientists and MDs feel that immuno-therapy (using the bodies own immune system to fight/kill the cancer) will be the most fruitful research, and probably the most successful in the long run.
..........FULL STOP.