More hope in cancer prevention

In fact, there are a few cases of rare cancer spontaneous recovery. This has doctors very interested because they do not understand what happened.

Could these miraculous cases provide important clues to cancer treatment?

Miraculous escape

A 74-year-old woman who had suffered from a rash was admitted to the hospital with red and purple waxy lumps covering her lower right leg. Tests revealed it was a form of melanoma and the future looked bleak.

The invasion of the tumors made radiation therapy seem ineffective; doctors were powerless with the method of surgically removing the tumor. And the treatment of amputation was probably the best choice for the old lady.

But, to the amazement of the doctors at St James Hospital (Dublin, Ireland), a miracle happened: the tumors began to shrink and dry up without any treatment. After 20 weeks under the supervision of the doctors, the patient had eliminated the cancer herself. Dr. Alan Irvine was amazed: "Somehow the old lady cured herself of this terrible cancer."

Scientists are constantly researching how to trigger an immune response that could help defeat cancer.

Cases of the body healing itself from cancer, like the old woman's, are rare. Based on these special cases, scientists are studying a biological phenomenon called "spontaneous regression" to hunt for clues that lead to cancer self-healing.

In theory, our immune system hunts down and destroys mutated cells before they develop into cancer. However, sometimes these cells evade detection, reproducing until they develop into a full-blown tumor.

By the time cancer is detected by doctors, recovery without help seems very difficult. According to medical literature, only 1 in 100,000 cancer patients are said to be cured without treatment.

Important clues

There are cases of recovery from a childhood cancer called neuroblastoma, which have provided some of the best clues about what triggered spontaneous remission.

Neuroblastoma is a type of cancer that arises from tumors in the nervous system and endocrine glands. If it spreads, it can cause nodules on the skin and develop in the liver, swelling in the abdomen, making it difficult for children to breathe.

Neuroblastoma is painful, but sometimes it disappears as quickly as it came, even without medical intervention. In children under 1 year old, regression is common, and doctors avoid immediate chemotherapy in the hope that the tumor will shrink on its own.

At Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (USA), there were 3 cases with impressive skin metastases and 1 case with an enlarged liver, but in the end they recovered very well.

Dr. Garrett Brodeur (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia - USA) said that, unlike other nerve cells, the cells in neuroblastoma tumors seem to be developed to survive without "nerve growth factor" (NGF) - allowing them to grow in the wrong parts of the body where NGF is absent.

Spontaneous remission is also triggered by a natural change in neuroblastoma cells, possibly related to the cell receptors to which NGF binds. Whatever the change, it means the cells cannot survive for long without receiving the nutrients they need.

If so, a drug that targets these receptors could trigger recovery in other patients. The drug would selectively kill sensitive tumor cells, thus sparing patients from chemotherapy, radiation or surgery. It wouldn't make them sick or lose their hair, or have low red blood cells."

The Key to Remission

In the late 19th century, Dr. William Bradley Coley was faced with saving the life of a patient with a large tumor in his neck. Five surgeries failed to completely eradicate the cancer. The patient then developed a severe skin infection and high fever. But then the patient recovered and the tumor disappeared...

Dr Colay was amazed and tested the principle on other patients and discovered that infecting patients with bacteria, or treating them with toxins harvested from bacteria, destroyed tumors in a remarkable way. Could infection be the key to inducing general remission? Recent analyses of the evidence have led to some compelling ideas.

Rashidi and Fisher's research found that 90 percent of patients who recovered from leukemia had suffered from other illnesses such as pneumonia shortly before the cancer disappeared. Other studies have documented tumors disappearing after patients developed diphtheria, gonorrhea, hepatitis, influenza, malaria, measles, smallpox, and syphilis.

It is possible that the infection triggers an immune response that kills the tumors. The heat of the fever may shrink the tumors because they are most vulnerable and trigger these cells to "commit suicide."

"I think the infection may innately change immune cells to help tumors kill themselves," said Henrik Schmidt of Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark. It also stimulates other parts of the immune system, such as dendritic cells and T cells, to recognize tumor cells so they can attack the cancer if it comes back.

New direction in cancer treatment

People are thinking about further ways of treating cancer, such as combining cancer patients with a tropical disease. This technique, developed by a US project called PrimeVax, involves a two-pronged approach.

The first involves taking a sample of a tumor and collecting dendritic cells from the patient's blood. These cells help coordinate the immune system's response to a threat, by exposing them to the tumor in the lab and potentially programming them to recognize cancer cells.

Meanwhile, patients will be given a dose of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne disease, before they are injected with a new strain of “trained” dendritic cells. Under the supervision of doctors at the hospital, patients will start to develop fevers of 40.50C, combined with the spread of inflammatory molecules.

If the hidden tumours are tracked down, they will now be targeted by a massive attack by immune cells, led by programmed dendritic cells. Infecting vulnerable patients with a tropical disease may seem risky, but the fact that malaria is so rarely fatal makes it the safest choice for infection.

Importantly, once the fever has subsided, the programmed immune cells will still be on the lookout for the tumour should it reappear. “Cancer is a moving target and most therapies attack it from just one side, but we are attacking it holistically now and in the future,” said Bruno Lyday of PrimeVax.

It sounds like an ambitious therapy, but it’s very possible. PrimeVax stresses that this is an early stage development. Trials will begin in melanoma patients in late 2015.

According to Health and Life