Matrix Metalloproteinase Inhibitors

August 6, 2014

Matrix Metalloproteinase Inhibitors Are Gaining Popularity In Cancer Treatment

Cancer cells just like the healthy normal body cells have specific process that have to be accomplished in order for them to survive. Cancer doctors have known this for a long time and most of the alternative cancer treatments that we have today are best on the understanding of certain survival mechanisms. There are certain cancer treatment alternatives that are geared towards making them more vulnerable to chemotherapy drugs and are hence used alongside the chemotherapy as well as other conventional cancer treatment medications like radiation therapy. There are other more effective cancer treatment alternatives that aim at interfering with the cancer cell metabolism mechanisms hence starve them by denying them the ATP energy that they need to accomplish some of their cellular functions like growth and division to give rise to new cancer cell. The use of alternative cancer treatment are gaining popularity not because the conventional cancer treatment medications do not work but to find better ways of treating cancer patients by targeting the cancer cells while safeguarding the healthy body cells. This is a loophole that has to be filled. In conventional medicine the treatment targets killing of the cancer cell but the healthy body cells are also affected by the chemotherapy drugs and they die as well leaving the patient with lots of side effects that are very life threatening. The cancer doctors and researchers are trying to treat cancer strategically so that the patient is not put through the pain of going for repeated chemotherapy. Due to these different alternatives to cancer treatments that work effectively in different cases to combat cancer, the new breed of cancer doctors; the integrative doctors have become a favorite for cancer patients. This is because they are very knowledgeable in oncology and puts in use all the alternative cancer treatments (naturopathic) and the conventional cancer treatment in a bid to achieve a whole person healing of the cancer patient.

One of the best ways of treating cancer is to use inhibitors. These inhibitors affect the normal functioning of the cancer cells and hence a slow their growth and survival rates. Some of these inhibitors are also strong enough to induce apoptosis of the cancer cells. Matrix metalloproteinase inhibitors are some of the inhibitors that help in strategic fighting of cancer.

Matrix metalloproteinases, often known as MMPs are a group of enzymes that are involved in a number of normal cellular processes, such as regulation of endometrial growth and menstruation, and abnormal processes, such as tumor growth, invasion, angiogenesis, and metastasis. Matrix metalloproteinases play a major role in angiogenesis. This is because they degrade the basement membrane and stromal tissue which is an important process for migration of endothelial cells needed to form new blood vessels. They also play an important role in the entry and exit of tumor cells into the blood vessels hence foster metastasis. Due to their critical contributions in angiogenesis and metastasis they can be strategically targeted in cancer treatment by utilizing Matrix metalloproteinases inhibitors that will main all their activities.

Matrix metalloproteinases can be produced in two ways; either the tumor cells produce them themselves or they tissues surrounding the cancer cell produce them. Because of their role in cancer etiology they are highly regulated especially through gene expression. They are secreted in inactive forms and must be cleaved to be active. Moreover they activities are also controlled by the Matrix metalloproteinases inhibitors that surround the tumor cell.

Researchers have done lots of work in trying to investigate if the matrix metalloproteinase inhibitors can be used to maim the functions of the Matrix metalloproteinases and help in cancer treatment. Their research are based on the logic that Matrix metalloproteinases are crucial enzymes for tumor invasion and metastasis and is targeted the spread of cancer can be curbed. This treatment however does address the formation of primary tumors but again it can work in controlling the spread of tumor hence important.

Doxycycline as a Matrix metalloproteinases inhibitor

Doxycycline is a semisynthetic, chemically modified tetracycline compound that is rapidly absorbed and exerts biological effects courtesy of its antimicrobial activity. It has been used in the past in wound treatment and is also one of the most effective Matrix metalloproteinases inhibitor.

Clinical as well as lab tests have been one to show the effectiveness of Doxycycline in inhibiting Matrix metalloproteinases activities. As all these activities were done with a view of finding a possibility of using it in curbing metastasis. The study pointed out that an enzyme; MMP-2 is needed for the cancer cells to dig in or other to penetrate the normal tissues. Doxycycline has an inhibitory effect on the MMP-2 expression. This was verified by a lab test on smooth muscle cells and human aortic aneurysm tissue explants. The test revealed that Doxycycline inhibited the activities of MMP-2 on these tissues. However for effectiveness the concentration of the Doxycycline matters in its activity against the MMP-2. In the normal serum concentration just 5ml of Doxycycline affects the production of MMP-2 greatly.

By use of Matrix metalloproteinases inhibitors like Doxycycline, the cancer treatment becomes more effective and strategic as the cancer cells become targeted. With controlled metastasis and growth of cancer cells the patient can have a longer life and possibly the disease will be managed done with completely by an integrative cancer doctor who will combine other therapies to make the treatment more effective.

Dr. Dalal Akoury is an experienced integrative cancer doctor who has seen very many cancer patients journey to victory in their fight against cancer. She is available for consultations. Just call her now and begin your journey to victory against cancer.

Matrix Metalloproteinase Inhibitors Are Gaining Popularity In Cancer Treatment

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Cancer Vaccines

August 4, 2014

Role of Cancer Vaccine In Integrative Cancer Treatment,

Vaccine Cancer is a multi-faceted disease that needs to be treated with different approaches. This is the reason why we have different alternative to cancer treatment. The researchers and doctors have done much to avail us these alternative and one of the alternatives that is used widely in cancer treatment today especially by integrative cancer doctors is the use of cancer vaccines in treating cancer. There are several vaccines that have been made available to be used in curbing cancer. However we are going to learn about two major vaccines that are widely used in integrative cancer centers to help in the course of curbing cancer.

Cancer vaccines play a role in making the body more resistant to the cancer cells. It works in a ways that make the cancer cells more visible hence can be spotted by the white blood cells and killed. The cancer cells are known to camouflage to the surrounding cells making them be mistaken for healthy cells by the killer cells. The vaccines “remove this mask” and makes them more vulnerable to the attacks of the white blood cells and hence are killed outright.

Baculillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG)

To those who might have heard of BCG can easily associate it with TB other than cancer. It is used against tuberculosis. However the recent research has found out that the Baculillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) can be used as a vaccine against cancer. It is found to have the abilities of stimulating the immune system to fight cancer naturally.

The researchers who led this research study were Dr Wai Liu and Professor Angus Dalgleish from St George’s, University of London. They opined that certain mechanism were likely to make the cancer vaccines more effective in enhancing the anticancer activity of the immune system. They said that these vaccines can be used alongside other cancer therapies as they will enhance the effectiveness of these treatments by awakening the immune system to fight cancer alongside these therapies.

The researchers used human tumor cells in a lab experiments. The researchers discovered that BCG played an apart by instructing the white blood cells to produce toxins that are known as cytokinins and use them in fighting the tumors. The cytokinins help by making the tumor cells more likely to be seen by the white blood cells. Hence making it easier for them to be fought.

“Cancerous cells are known to camouflage themselves as healthy cells. This means our blood cells responsible for immunity aren’t able to recognize the cancerous cells as being a problem and so the disease is able to continue to spread,” says Dr Wai Liu who led the research.

“This study found that a small quantity of BCG – similar to the amount that is administered in a TB inoculation can help the immune system recognize the cancer cells as ‘foreign’. The immune system can then attack these cells in the same way it would any other infection.” He concludes

When the BCG is introduced in the body cytokinins are released by the white blood cells in response, these cytokinins cause very many processes that begin by forcing the cancerous cells to switch off its camouflage or better yet “unmasking” the cancer cells. This makes the cancerous cells to be more visible to the white blood cells and the entire immune system. With this improved visibility of the tumor cells the white blood cells can now target the cancerous cell more strategically.

The effectiveness of the vaccine on different type of cancers was tested. The researchers did this by injecting BCG to the human cells from the lung, breast, colon, pancreatic and skin cancer. The test revealed that BCG increased the visibility of cancer cells on the colon, breast and lungs greatly. They verified that when camouflage of the cancer cells is reduced then they can be easily attacked and killed by the body’s immune system.

The Coley’s Vaccine

Coley’s vaccine also known as endotoxin treatment, Issel’s therapy or mixed bacterial vaccine was developed in New York City in 1890’s by a bone surgeon known as William Coley. Coley vaccine works and though currently doctors have found no scientific evidence that Coley’s vaccine can treat or prevent cancer there are many cancer survivors who claim to have used the Coley’s treatment.

Dr. William Coley developed the Coley’s therapy after realizing that the cancer patients who got infections after surgery lived longer than those who did not get an infection. His basis for developing Coley’s treatment was an argument that the infection stimulated the immune system of the patients to fight cancer. The first approach to Coley’s treatment was rather risky as he would inject live bacteria in the tumors, in most cases this method caused serious illness and in some cases the patients died due to the infection. Having seen the dangers in using live bacteria, he began using killed bacteria which raised the patient’s temperatures but did not cause any threat to the patients’ lives.

The Coley’s vaccine uses infectious agents. The treatment has it that the infectious agents are injected in the bloodstream. These infectious agents however has to be prepared by a qualified doctor in the hospital to ensure that they are safe and not contaminated hence cannot harm the patient. The infectious agents maybe mixed in given proportions to come up with a Coley’s Vaccine personalized to the patient’s type of cancer. Coley’s Vaccine is mostly used with other traditional cancer treatment methods.

Vaccine Dr. Coley opined that fever induction is a key aspect of treatment. In his treatment he observed that a stronger febrile response was the symptom most associated with tumor regression. When researchers went deep to look into the Coley’s Vaccine treatment method it was found that it was more effective on patients whose fevers ranged between 38-40 degrees. The Patients who had no fever during treatment did not do so well in the treatment.

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Cancer Stem Cells

August 3, 2014

Cancer Stem Cells and How They Can Be Handled By Integrative Cancer Centers

Cancer treatment needs to be effective enough to save the cancer patients from the nightmare of having to go through repeated chemotherapy as that causes not only unbearable pain but also causes lots of financial crisis as repeated chemotherapy is not always cheap. There are very many alternatives to cancer treatment today, thanks to our compassionate cancer doctors and researchers who are not pleased to see how we are losing our loved ones everyday to this monster. All the alternative cancer treatments work well in curbing the spread of the tumors in the patient’s body and trying to kill all the cancer cells so as to restore good health to the cancer patient.

There is a problem however with most of cancer treatment alternatives. This is because most of the cancer treatment alternatives target the circulating tumor cells (CTCs). I don’t mean to say that targeting circulating tumors cells in cancer treatment is wrong; my concern is that very few cancer treatment alternatives target the cancer stem cells. It is important to know what role the cancer stem cells play in cancer cell growth formation so as to understand why it is so important to address them in any cancer treatment.

Cancer Stem Cells

Cancer stem cells are defined as those cells within a tumor that can self-renew and drive tumorigenesis. They are very critical in the formation of new tumors that will continue to grow even when after the parent tumors are killed.

Most, if not all cancers, are propagated by cancer stem cells. The bulk of a tumor consists of cancer cells that are not reproducing, or self-propagating. These unproducing cancer cells are what chemotherapy targets. And if what research findings points out are to be believed, chemotherapy does not kill the cancer stem cells but induces resistance in the cancer stem cells making it even hard for them to be killed by the chemotherapy drugs.

The cancer stem cells need to be killed if the cancer patient is to get an effective cancer treatment as they are the ones responsible for growth of cancer cells. The tumor may be targeted and attacked by the chemotherapy drugs or any other form of cancer treatment but if the cancer stem cells are not killed in the process the growth will re-occur as the cancer stem cells are still alive and are able to facilitate the growth and division of cancer cell.

The research on the roles of cancer stem cells on the tumor growth is an important are of study as cancer stem cells have been found to play the most important role in cancer. This is the fuel that forms the cancer cells. Targeting the circulating tumor cells is like trying to remove a weed by cutting its stem, the weed will obviously do; farmers know this better than we do . Targeting the cancer stem cells on the other hand is like uprooting the weed from its roots. It will not grow again lest another seed is planted. So if you kill the cancer stem cells that plays a major role in division and formation of new cancer cells will make it hard for the disease to recur. Cancer research focuses on stem cells present in malignant tumors. Most Researchers believe that most current cancer treatments mostly fail because they don’t destroy the cancer stem cells.

The conventional cancer treatment methods like chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery are not effective in cancer treatment since they do not target the cancer stem cells which are like the root of the weed. Therefore it is advisable to have a cancer patient treated at an integrative cancer treatment centre so that other alternative cancer treatments can be explored in a bid to uproot the disease by killing the cancer stem cells.

It is also very important for cancer to be treated under the supervision of a qualified integrative cancer doctor. The best thing about having your cancer patient treated at an integrative cancer centre is that these centers are well equipped and the doctors are all round doctors who can combine both the conventional cancer treatment methods and the naturopathic cancer treatments to ensure that the disease is fought successfully. AwareMed is an example of an integrative cancer centre that has seen many cancer patients get the best treatment that not only targeted to kill the cancer cell but to ensure a whole person healing. Dr. Dalal Akoury has supervised many cancer patients in their cancer treatments and helped them get healing. He is one of the few doctors who have embraced the idea of targeting cancer stem cells in cancer treatment to avoid possibility of the disease recurring.

At AwareMed for example the doctors implement the use of natural healing power of diet to target the cancer stem cell by altering their DNA composition making them unable to divide and give rise to new cancer cells. These can also be used alongside chemotherapy to avoid the recurrence of cancer after chemotherapy. Integrative cancer treatment is the best trough which the cancer stem cells can be done away with hence making treatment more effective.

Cancer Stem Cells and How They Can Be Handled By Integrative Cancer Centers

Off-label Drugs and Cancer

August 3, 2014

Use of off-label Drugs in Cancer Treatment

off-label In the past, there was a belief that when you had gone for cancer diagnosis then the only options of treatment you had were only chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery. This belief seemingly has refused to leave the minds of very many people even after medical researchers and other oncologists have done lots of work to avail various alternatives to cancer treatments. The researchers are giving us better ways of treating cancer everyday and all we ought to do is find an integrative cancer doctor who can make the best out of the discovered cancer treatment alternatives. The reason to why so many alternatives to cancer treatment are sought everyday is not because there is no cancer cure, no cancer unlike HIV has known cures all the doctors and researcher are trying to do is to find us a better cancer treatment that is free from all the severe and life threatening side effects that cancer patients have to embrace while undergoing the conventional cancer treatments. Some of these alternatives also work better when used alongside conventional cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy. They also increase the effectiveness of the chemotherapy treatment as they induce the cancer cells to consume poisoned food particles, an example of this is the Insulin potentiation therapy that has been used to effectively target the cancer cells, killing them without causing any severe hurt to the healthy body cells. Other alternative cancer treatments have also proved their effectiveness in fighting cancer and so it is time to shift this belief in conventional cancer treatments and accept the new inventions that can help cancer patients to get better treatments. There are very many alternatives to cancer treatments and that is one of the reasons why AwareMed exists; to let you know of all the available options that you can utilize in case you become a victim of this dreaded disease. Here is one of the alternatives.

Use of Off-label Drugs

The off label use of drugs is to use medicine for another reason other than the intended purpose for which it was approved by the United States FDA or any other regulatory body. It is the use of drug for the purpose that is not on the official label, hence “off-label”. There are very many drugs that are meant to treat other diseases but can work very well in cancer treatment. The utilization of these off-label drugs is not something unusual, though they are not as common as they ought to be. The regulatory bodies have not supported the use of drugs approved for treatment of a particular disease to be used in treatment of another disease and this may explain why the use of off-label drugs is not that common. Cancer is a disease that is caused by many factors and so is it treatment facilitated by many factors. There are conditions that cancer shares with other diseases and so the treatment that works in those other diseases will work rather perfectly in cancer treatment. The integrative doctors knows the relationship between cancer and other diseases and whether the off-label drugs can work better in suppressing the tumor growth and restore the health of the cancer patient. Experienced integrative cancer doctors like Dr. Dalal Akoury (MD) can help personalize the use of off-label drugs to help in healing the cancer patient better.

The off-label drugs can work in different ways to help in fighting the cancer. The avenues through which the off-label drugs work to treat cancer are numerous and are based on the common features that cancer shares with the said diseases. It is not strange to hear that diabetes drugs are used for cancer.

Diabetes Drugs for cancer

One of the great oncologist; Otto Warburg showed the dependence of cancer cells on glucose. In his experiments he proved that cancer cells depended solely on sugar sources of energy to survive and metastasize. Without sugar the cancer cell will be starved to death as they will not access the necessary nutrient supplies. Diabetes drugs are used to suppress the sugar level in the blood. These drugs work in favor of cancer treatment as they tend to reduce the amount of energy that is available for the cancer cells to survive on. An integrated oncologist may decide to use a diabetic drug to suppress the sugar level in a cancer patient and hasten the death of cancer cells out of starvation. As the cancer cell will be dying the healthy body cells will be using other sources of energy like fats to survive.

Apart from diabetes drugs, there are other medications that are useful in cancer treatment. Drugs used in enhancing immunity can be used to stimulate the white blood cells to fight cancer cells. Antibiotics that are not mentioned as cancer drugs may help in fighting cancer by inhibiting the enzymes that the cancer cells are dependent on.

Noscapine has also been found to be very effective in fighting cancer as it helps in cancer by preventing the division of cancer cells.

off-label Some of the drugs used as anti-HIV can also be used in cancer treatment. Examples are ritonavir, nelfinavir and saquinavir. A test that was done by Dr. Phillip Dennis found that these drugs have an effect on the growth of cancer as they were found to kill cancer cells through apoptosis, necrosis and autophagy.

Use of off-label Drugs in Cancer Treatment

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Whole Body Hyperthermia

August 2, 2014

The Role of Whole Body Hyperthermia In Cancer Care

Hyperthermia is a condition in which the body temperatures are higher than the normal degrees. Hyperthermia can be caused by certain diseases but it can also be created by medical experts to help in treatment of certain diseases especially cancer. In this case it is referred to as heat treatment. Higher than normal temperatures are known to cause various health complications but in hyperthermia the heat is under careful control of qualified medical personnel hence cannot kill the patient but only kill the cancerous cells.

Use of hyperthermia which is also called thermal therapy in cancer treatment involves exposing the patient’s body tissues to high temperatures of up to 113°F.Thermal therapy is used to kill or damage the cancerous cells without or with minimal hurt to the healthy cells.

Thermal treatment helps in making the cancer cells more vulnerable to treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy. High temperatures may also kill the cancer cells instantly. Hyperthermia is very effective in treatment of cancer but it may also lead to the death of healthy cells for this reason it needs to be handled by doctors who are well versed in the area and can take good control of the heat so as to avoid harm to the patient.

Hyperthermia had been used in the past however, back then the tools used in hyperthermia were not as effective and so the results were not constant. The reason to this was that the doctors were finding it hard to maintain that heat on a specific area of the body for a certain time without affecting the remaining parts of the body that was not subject to the treatment. This means the other body parts that did not have cancerous cells also got affected adversely. Nevertheless there are no hopes lost as today’s tools used in hyperthermia are more effective and it is now easy to control the heat on a certain area without affecting the rest of the body. Today very many health institutions are using hyperthermia in treatment of cancer worldwide.

There are different types of hyperthamia depending on the area the heat is concentrated. I had tackled the different types of hyperthermia in the past and today we are going to learn about the whole body hyperthermia and how it can be effectively used in cancer treatment.

Whole-body hyperthermia

The whole hyperthermia as used in cancer treatment involves the application of heat on the entire body of the cancer patient. Whole body hyperthermia mainly used in treating cancer that has spread to other body parts in other words it is used in treatment of metastatic cancer. There are varieties of methods through which the heat can be applied to the whole body. These methods may include but not limited to: hot-water blankets, special coiled devices or special thermal chambers that are like large incubators.

The whole body hyperthermia involves increasing the body temperatures but the heat used in local hyperthermia is much higher than the heat used in whole body hyperthermia. In whole body hyperthermia the temperatures are raise above 43 degrees Celsius. The whole body thermal therapy is mostly used with other conventional treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Thermal therapy does lots to kill the cancer cells. when the proteins in the cancer cells gets coagulated and the blood vessels that supply the cancer cells with nutrients are destroyed, the cancer cells remains with no food source and so they die out of starvation and damage caused by the thermal therapy. The thermal therapy literally cooks the surrounding of the cancer cells depleting all the proteins in the cancer cells and destroying the blood vessels they rely on for supplies of the necessary nutrients.

To retain the heat the cancer patient may be placed in a tent that is made of a very flexible thermal insulator. The tent which is placed over a patients bed or treating table helps in keeping the heat. The tent is spacious enough to let the patient move about in it during the treatment. The tent is also fitted with transparent windows to help the patient keep in touch with relatives who might have come to visit him or her during the treatment. This heat will be retained up to the time that it has been used effectively in killing the cancerous cells.

The whole body hyperthermia helps the body in fighting cancer in several ways. Today very many cancer patients are going through whole body hyperthermia as a treatment to their disease. Here are some of the ways through which it helps in fighting cancer.

The whole body hyperthermia stimulates the body’s natural immune system to fight the cancer cells.
It helps in increasing the cancer cell recognition by the body’s immune system hence can be easily targeted and killed.
It also increases the immune system chemicals that fight the cancer cells
Increases the strength of macrophage, lymphocyte, cytotoxic T cells and dendritic cells in the body. These help the immune system in fighting cancer.
increases the more beneficial heat-shock proteins
The whole body hyperthermia also increases blood flow-oxygen to the more low oxygen tumors. Cancer cell do not thrive where there is lots of oxygen.
It also weakens the tumor cell walls hence making them more vulnerable to chemotherapy
Whole body hyperthermia also helps in reducing cancer cell resistance to chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

The role of Whole body hyperthermia in cancer care

Tag Archives: Management of cancer