One Drug to Shrink All Tumors

[Julian Englis]

Source: Science/AAAS

A single drug can shrink or cure human breast, ovary, colon, bladder, brain, liver, and prostate tumors that have been transplanted into mice, researchers have found. The treatment, an antibody that blocks a "do not eat" signal normally displayed on tumor cells, coaxes the immune system to destroy the cancer cells.

A decade ago, biologist Irving Weissman of the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California, discovered that leukemia cells produce higher levels of a protein called CD47 than do healthy cells. CD47, he and other scientists found, is also displayed on healthy blood cells; it's a marker that blocks the immune system from destroying them as they circulate. Cancers take advantage of this flag to trick the immune system into ignoring them. In the past few years, Weissman's lab showed that blocking CD47 with an antibody cured some cases of lymphomas and leukemias in mice by stimulating the immune system to recognize the cancer cells as invaders. Now, he and colleagues have shown that the CD47-blocking antibody may have a far wider impact than just blood cancers.

"What we've shown is that CD47 isn't just important on leukemias and lymphomas," says Weissman. "It's on every single human primary tumor that we tested." Moreover, Weissman's lab found that cancer cells always had higher levels of CD47 than did healthy cells. How much CD47 a tumor made could predict the survival odds of a patient.

To determine whether blocking CD47 was beneficial, the scientists exposed tumor cells to macrophages, a type of immune cell, and anti-CD47 molecules in petri dishes. Without the drug, the macrophages ignored the cancerous cells. But when the CD47 was present, the macrophages engulfed and destroyed cancer cells from all tumor types.

Read more: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/03/one-drug-to-shrink-all-tumors.html?ref=hp

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Amazing news if it can be developed for medical use.

[Skidmore]

1. Guaranteed to be sold for megabucks to only those with

cadillac health care plans.

[Mosby]

2. sounds very promising!

Nt

[MADem]

3. My friend recently died of brain cancer.

It would have been wonderful if this research could have been plumped out and working to stop the progression of the disease. It was a valiant fight, the same thing that killed Ted Kennedy. Terribly sad. Awful end. The sooner they can apply this, the better.

[Fearless]

4. +1

[YvonneCa]

7. I agree. The sooner...

...the better. Sorry about your friend, MADem.

[MADem]

13. Talk about a long goodbye.

I felt for his family, they were so devastated. He was a youngster, relatively speaking, in his early fifties--way too young to go, but towards the end of a very valiant fight (he lasted three years and change after his diagnosis--tried EVERYTHING) it was time. Sad as hell, but time.

[IndyJones]

20. My cousin had the same thing. It was so sad. She was only 43 when she died, leaving behind two

kids and her husband. She was a local teacher. Would be great to get that drug out and working for people.

[DFW]

8. Amen to that

I lost my brother-in-law, my cousin and my aunt to brain cancer, my dad to pancreatic cancer, another aunt to breast cancer, and my mom and my wife had breast cancer, although a stroke got my mom first, and my wife has beat her breast cancer so far (11 years this year).

With my family history, I'm almost a lock to get cancer of some sort, and so are my daughters. I'm skeptical as all hell about this, but VERY willing to be proven wrong.

[MADem]

14. How dreadful to lose so many to the damned disease.

I hope you all dodge the genetic predisposition. I'd love it if they could come up with a vaccine!

Now that would be a thing!

[DFW]

27. It's in our genes, it seems. Nothing we can do about that

I'd love to be able to play a little "Beat The Reaper," although if 15% of the population
suddenly starts living 25 years longer, we had better make Planned Parenthood a Cabinet
position, or else start subsidizing food.

In the meantime, we eat a LOT of raw veggies and broccoli!

[MADem]

28. Come on, cure! We'll address the other stuff as needed! nt

[xtraxritical]

33. Dear DFW, me too.

I lost my Mom to throat cancer, after a bout with colon cancer. I lost my Dad to pancreatic cancer. My Dad's sister was lost to brain cancer. I guess we've been thru the mill, I sure hope there's truth to these findings. God bless you and yours, hang tough.

[DFW]

37. Sounds like we've been through the SAME mill!

Almost anyway. Dad had pancreatic cancer, his sister died of brain cancer--we have certainly traveled portions of the same road.

You hang tough, too (like we have a choice!).

[stevedeshazer]

11. As did my brother

I spent fourteen long, agonizing months with his suffering.

Please, please let this be true. No one should suffer like that.

[MADem]

15. I agree--the suffering is the worst. nt

[Bearware]

30. Something that is available now that might work

There is an orphan drug called Dichloroacetate (DCA) that was experimentally used for children with mitochondrial problems. It has been out for so long it cannot be patented so big Pharma will not deal with it directly . However in the last year someone filed a patent for a one of the latest chemotherapy drugs with two DCA's attached to it.

I believe there is one journal paper out on someone who refused chemo but decided to use DCA and his oncologist tracked his progress with blood tests. It is not a silver bullet and will not fix everything. DCA not chemo and is far less debilitating. It is relatively cheap but you must find a quality source - probably the UK but definitely not Mexico.

The following amateur site has tried to track it. If you are interested then you need to read most of what is on the site and PAY ATTENTION to warnings. Milligrams matter. Someone with a gioma took too much to fast and died when it killed the tumor too quickly.

www.thedcasite.com

I have been following it for some years but do not have any direct experience with it's use.

[ChazII]

5. Neurofibromatosis

Hopefully it will work on the tumors caused by neurofibromatosis.

This is wonderful news for those with tumors caused by other disorders.

[tanyev]

6. ...and in the darkness bind them.

Seriously, though, this would be amazing if they can get it to work.

[seeviewonder]

9. If it actually works in more trials

it will only be a matter of time until Big Pharma latches on and doesn't let go. A few patents later and bam: expensive and cost-prohibitive medicine that few can afford. Gotta keep that bottom line looking good, you know!

[Marthe48]

10. Husband has had so many cancer deaths in his family

I hope, I pray that this is the one we've all been waiting for.

[valerief]

12. Pharma isn't going to give up cancer. It makes too much money off it. nt

[crunch60]

17. Exactly! There is just no incentive to give up this mega money making disease.

And the poison they are putting in all of our food sources will make sure it continues. I have been reading about these trials of new drugs for years, so promising in mice although we humans never get to see them. There have been some new drugs for breast cancer, but the side effects are very debilitating. And other Chemo's will destroy many other organs in the quest to destroy cancer cells.
My Dad died of cancer at 48.

[Doremus]

23. You got it!

The American diet is literally killing us.

The oligarchy and its bought-and-paid-for government agencies have a vested interest in maintaining status quo.

Our good health would kill their bottom lines.

[riverbendviewgal]

16. I wish my son and husband could have the chance to use this

my son had glioblastma multiforme brain tumor and died in 1999 .
his dad had non Hodgkin's lymphoma and died in 2001..
They were diagnosed within two months of each other in 1998..

[Doremus]

22. My sincere condolences on your profound losses. n/t

[MADem]

29. Jesus! I can't imagine that pain. So sorry for your loss.

I know time smooths out the rough edges, but still...damn.

[Deep13]

18. Hope it works in humans, but...

...any doctor can cure cancer in mice. For some reason that's really easy.

[stlsaxman]

19. what pisses me off is that this will never be available even if it works.

there is way too much money to be made on the suffering and dying of others in this sick fucking nation of ours.

i lost one of my best friends in the world to cancer last Sunday....

FUCK BIG PHARMA- FUCK HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES... FUCK 'EM ALL.

(i fully expect to have this post banned by some hyper sensitive type who thinks my venting will offend people... go ahead- i don't fucking care anymore.)

[unkachuck]

21. we lost....

....my wifes' youngest brother (age 43) to esophageal cancer two weeks ago....I feel the same way you do....

....there is no way to sugar-coat this anymore....people who won't support Medicare-for-all want to see people die, their fellows Americans die, their neighbors die....I have no patience and total contempt for these people....they are inhuman....

[glinda]

24. Hard to hear about all the break throughs and yet people do not get helped.

[felix_numinous]

25. Wow thanks for posting this JE

I just read up on it and may change my mind on more chemo if this is available. I have IV stage lymphoma of a type that doesn't respond well to follow up treatments...but this may change everything.

[Julian Englis]

26. As this might actually greatly reduce cost of cancer care, insurance companies may well favor it

Cancer care is very expensive. This would seem to have the potential of reducing the cost of it, so big insurance companies would favor.

[AllyCat]

32. My tin foil hat angel/devil says the Medical Industrial Complex would fight this

They make a lot of money on this stuff. Wonder if the insurance industry would break from them.

Hope this goes forward and is applicable. Our neighbor is fighting breast cancer and is now losing the fight. She has a husband and two little kids.

[mimitabby]

31. my husband has just been told his cancer is incurable

I hope they get this out while he's still alive. (sigh)

[YvonneCa]

35. ...

...

[Uncle Joe]

34. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Julian Englis.

[truebrit71]

36. That would be amazing....my wife just completed 6 months of chemo treatment for breast cancer...

...and one of the drugs in the cocktail she was given was designed to hit one specific protein ONLY...truly amazing...

[Stuckinthebush]

38. Let's move this thing along, FDA!

I'm a researcher and understand the need for a number of phases of tests. But, in situations where you have incurable cancers the harm should be minimal to get it out in the public sphere faster than the 20 year normal time-table for FDA approval.

Here is hoping that this procedure continues to hold up under further review!

[sarcasmo]

39. When available it will cost the consumer

1, Million! dollars.