a cancer vaccine!

Fari95

hello everybody,

Has anyone heard about " Hasumi Vaccine"? A Japanese one ?

Momine

There are various immune therapies already on the market and also at least one BC vaccine in trials (and looking promising, as far as I remember). However, Dr. Hasumi's treatment is made from the patient's urine and has no science to back it

leftduetostupidmods

A vaccine is defined as "a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease.". Putting aside our wishful thinking, hopes and all that, do you really think there can be such a thing as a "cancer vaccine"?

Momine

Seachain, there are treatments for cancer which are often referred to as "vaccines" although they are not strictly vaccines by the definition you posted. Basically the idea is to train the immune system to attack the cancer cells, either directly or indirectly. Some of these are showing promise, but it is still early days.

Lisa123456

Coley's Toxins have been around for over 100 years. They stimulate the immune system in such a way that it can attack cancer cells. Some diseases with prolonged high fever do the same (that's where Dr. Coley got his idea from). Could one of the reasons of the modern cancer epidemic be that we don't allow fever to do its job by suppressing it? It is possible that many early-stage cancer were wiped out by the immune system before people had a chance to be diagnosed. I, actually, wondered about the benefits of fever for a long time, and at some point even asked a pharmacist if he knew of pain killers that reduce pain but leave fever alone. He said that would only be narcotics. I found this very strange: the reason most people take medications during flu is to get rid of aches and pains, not fever (at least I do). Why not offer us a choice?

Fallleaves

Lisa, it might be that cancer cells are killed directly by the increased temperature from fever. This NCI page about hyperthermia in cancer treatment mentions, "high temperatures can damage and kill cancer cells, usually with minimal injury to normal tissues."

Hyperthermia is controlled heating to a specific temperature of small areas, portions, or the entire body.

http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types...

But either way, you may be onto something in that we are controlling fever much more than we ever used to, so opportunities for our bodies to naturally "burn off" cancer cells, have probably declined. Of course, I'd rather be able to control fever than not, since extremely high fever can cause damage, too!

Lisa123456

Fallleaves, yes, I agree that we should be able to control fever when it reaches dangerous levels. However, I'd let it run to 40 - 41C for myself if I wasn't in pain at the same time. When I was a child, I had fevers up to 43C many-many times (I spent half of my childhood sick with either pneumonia or strep throat). My mother didn't think fever was dangerous and, unless I complained of pain, didn't give me any painkillers. I outgrew my illnesses and don't get high temperature anymore, except for an occasional flu. When I get flu, I usually get terrible headaches and take Tylenol or Advil which also reduce fever, preventing my body from fighting the disease in a natural way.

I read about Hyperthermia treatments, but I don't think the temperature alone is responsible for the therapeutic effect. I suspect that during illness, temperature is one of many pieces of the immune system puzzle that work together to attack invaders, but we aware of this particular piece because its workings and effects on us are immediate, obvious, and easily measurable.

Lisa123456

Here's a very interesting paper on induction of the immune response accompanied by fever and its relation to cancer:

http://www.fevertherapy.eu/references/hobohm-2001-cancerimmunimmu.pdf

Fallleaves

Lisa, thanks for sharing that paper! You're right, fever is a function of the immune system, so there's probably a lot more involved than just heat killing the cancer cells.

Fari95

thank you momine