Immunotherapy
Immunotherapy refers to the treatment of the body's immune system. This is a very complex system comprising the body as a whole. It is not only the first line of defense against invaders, but also protects us against a variety of diseases, such as chronic degenerative diseases and cancer.
Specific immune therapy protocols are integrated into the very comprehensive treatment programs of the Issels Medical Center. Treatment protocols for cancer and other immune disorders are customized to suit each individual patient's specific needs, and include standard treatments when indicated.
The treatment program at the Issels Medical Center is based on the comprehensive immunotherapy concept developed by Josef M. Issels MD, which has a fifty-year history in the treatment of cancer.
If you would like to learn more about the scope of the Issels Treatment, please visit www.Issels.com
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Cancer patients' bodies don't know they are sick.
In cancer patients the body's regulatory, repair and defense mechanisms fail to prevent formation of a cancerous tumor. They tolerate it. This “tolerance”, also called “regulatory freeze”, is due to a combination of causal factors that vary from one individual patient to the other and lead to an internal environment, a “soil”, that promotes cancer growth.
The comprehensive immunotherapy administered at the Issels Medical Center aims to break through this "tolerance". It is a unique blend of non-toxic treatment modalities that complement and enhance one another in an effort to attack the cancer and at the same time restore the body's regulatory, repair and defense systems, of which the immune system is one important part. In general terms, some of these treatments work on the levels of the biochemical defense and help cancer cells to undergo differentiation as encoded in the genes that cause them to die through programmed cell death called apoptosis. Other treatment modalities work on the levels of cell-mediated and humoral immunities.
"Immunotherapy may be one of the only ways left to deal with cancer. We've gone as far as we can with chemotherapy", says oncologist Herman Kattlove, an editor for the American Cancer Society. "With few new drugs coming out," he says, "chemotherapy is sort of a dead area"… New Weapon in Cancer War. The Wall Street Journal. May 23, 2003: B1.
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Immunotherapy for cancer is based on the principle that the host's immune system is capable of generating immune responses against tumor specific antigens. Natural Killer Cells (NKC), in particular, have been shown to eliminate solid tumors and metastatic cells in the circulation through their cytotoxicity and cytokine production. In 2009, a retrospective analysis of NKC counts included 129 cancer patients who underwent the Issels Treatment program at the Issels Medical Center in Santa Barbara, California. NKC response to Issels Treatment protocol revealed an average 48% increase in absolute NKC levels per patient in approximately 3 weeks.
* DISCLAIMER: The extent of the response to treatment varies from patient to patient, even with similar diagnosis as the internal bodily environment is unique to each individual patient.
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