Immunotherapy – the “new” treatment for cancers – actually began in 1891 with William B. Coley, a bone sarcoma surgeon. As a young doctor, Coley watched as a 17-year old girl (who had had her forearm amputated because of bone cancer) died of metastatic sarcoma ten weeks after her surgery. This tragedy started Coley on a quest to...
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Nanodrugs have been around for some time. In fact, over 250 drugs using nanotechnology that have been approved by the FDA and are in clinical use. The name nanodrug or nanopharmaceuticals refers to the size of the particle that is created to house the medication. A nano is very tiny: nanoparticles are between 1 and 100 nanometers in at least one of its...
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Cherry Hughes** is an active, energetic 75 year old, still working in the marketing and public relations profession in Great Britain. Her life is filled with friends and fun. “I love cooking and eating out. I am deeply interested in politics. I love music …I go to jazz clubs. I love going to France …I have a little apartment...
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In It’s All In Your Gut, A High Fiber Diet and the Immune System, we introduced the microbiome that lives in our body. It helps with our digestion and makes the short-chained fatty acids (SCFAs) that are important to our immune system. Now several recent studies are looking at bacteria in the bodies of people with cancer. Specifically, these...
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In July 2015, we published a post called Patients Included In Research: Studying Cancer by Mutation Not Organ. In that post, we shared the goal that cancers would be treated not by the site of origin, but rather by their genetic features. Achieving this goal is closer than you think! This week the FDA announced accelerated approval** of a...
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When you’re 8 years old, jumping rope, playing dolls, swinging on swing sets and doing homework are girlhood pursuits. Discovering “Lumpy Luey” in your left chest wall isn’t. In 1978, Stephanie Dodds’ way of coping with the diagnosis of Ewing Sarcoma was to give it a name and focus on “getting rid of it.”...
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In Oncology Basics 2016 part 1, we examined the elegance of the cells that make up our body. In Oncology Basics 2016 part 2, we explored what holds the instructions for life–DNA–and the special processes of self-replication and transcription that are used to pass on and translate those instructions. Now we will try to connect the...
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“Nixon asked, ‘Doctor, what do you consider the most pressing problem that medicine has today?’…My answer was simple: ‘Cancer.’ He said, ‘I’m amazed. Why do you say that?’ My reply was, ‘I think every physician who is dedicated and sincere never goes on the floor of a hospital where he has...
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In the US, people buy health insurance to pay for their medical care. Often their employer, as a benefit, offers partially subsidized health insurance (if they are working full time). Yet, even if people buy the best coverage they can through their employer, they pay out-of-pocket costs. Some, who can’t afford that kind of chunk out of the weekly...
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“A second opinion is when a doctor other than your regular doctor gives you his or her view about your health problem and how to treat it.” Definition on Medicare.gov In 2011, Susan [name changed to protect her identity] found a lump in her right breast. She went to one of the two nearby university medical centers. At facility A, the surgeon told her...
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“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” ~Dalai Lama In 2008, Audrey Guth, mother and president of Diamond Personnel, a nanny placement agency in Toronto Canada, arrived at the hospital for breast cancer chemotherapy. She saw mothers receiving chemotherapy infusions holding “really young...
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The Cancer Research Institute has created an infographic to explain cancer immunotherapy. Cancer immunotherapy is an incredible resource to treat cancer. Essentially, the immune system is activated and its ability to remove specific cancer cells is re-enabled. The infographic below explains the components of the immune system that are...
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