Yervoy Emerges for Melanoma – 2011
Ipilimumab: First in the Class of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors Close to 100,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with the dangerous skin disease melanoma each year, and about 7,600 die of the...
Melanoma
Home > Cancer Types >
Lymphoma and Adcetris®
Drug for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Elsewhere I wrote that an FDA advisory panel had recommended that the agency approve a new drug for Hodgkin lymphoma, brentuximab. In August 2011, the FDA gave...
Fecal Microbiota Transplantation
Altering Gut Microbiota This is a treatment that is hard to classify! Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) refers to the transfer of fecal matter from one individual to another. When used...
Progress Against Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
Penn’s Therapy for CLL Relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is not the easiest disease to treat. That is why a small series of cases is attracting great attention. Using a...
Triple-Negative Breast Cancer and Genetic Mutations
Falling Down the Rabbit Hole! Scientists studying triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC or ER-PR-HER2-) at Vanderbilt University made a disturbing discovery. Even after receiving chemotherapy...
Vemurafenib (Zelboraf®)
Vemurafenib (Zelboraf®): A Cause for Celebration? An item that is causing “celebration” among melanoma patients is the experimental drug vemurafenib. Data on this was presented at ASCO’s annual...
Anti-PD1 Therapy
Steals the Show at ASCOThe major excitement at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) concerned “anti-PD1 therapy.” PD-1 stands for “programmed death 1...
Biases in Clinical Trials
Assessing the Effects of a New DrugThere are various ways in which the sponsors of a clinical trial can exaggerate the effects of a new drug on progression-free survival (PFS). This can be done...
What Are Phase IV Clinical Trials?
The Purpose Most people have heard of phase III clinical trials. But, according to Google Trends, only one-third as many are aware of the existence of the fourth phase of clinical trials. The...
FDA and FBI Raid Oklahoma Laetrile Clinic
The Camelot ClinicOn Tuesday, April 23, 2013, agents of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Oklahoma Medical Board raided an alternative...
The Amazing Case of Dr Wortman
Precision Medicine Let's start with Precision Medicine at its very best. This was the inspiring story of Dr. Lukas Wortman, MD, which helped catapult the topic into public consciousness. In 2012,...
Selumetinib: The Selling of a Drug
Targeted Therapies I attended the 2013 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). Some of my journalistic colleagues there were excited about the latest findings...
Gut Health, Microbiome & Cancer
Gut Health, Microbiome & Cancer - Can this garden of tiny plants in the gut help fight cancer? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXGdgkca1YA There is almost a 1:1 correspondence between the...
How to Starve Cancer with Jane McLelland
Dr. Moss and author Jane McLelland speak about topics in her book "How to Starve Cancer Without Starving Yourself". Learn Ralph’s Mushroom Soup RecipeCoffee and Cancer Transcript Welcome...
Dwight McKee Discusses the Importance of Immunotherapy
Dwight McKee, MD, is board-certified in medical oncology, hematology, nutrition, and integrative and holistic medicine. He discusses his lifetime of experience in the cancer world with Dr. Moss....
Vitamin D and Cancer with William B. Grant, PhD
In this episode, Dr. Ralph Moss talks with William Grant, PhD, one of the leading experts on vitamin D and cancer. Grant is the founding director of Sunlight, Nutrition, and Health Research...
Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors: Will They Work For You?
Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors: One of the most important questions about ICI therapy is who will respond to this new type of treatment. A recent paper from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson...
Goldman Sachs to Biotech: Don’t Cure Cancer
Cancer is a growth industry. And drug companies are not interested in curing cancer. It is more profitable to turn it into a chronic condition. They can then offer “chronic treatments.”...
Keytruda Immunotherapy for Cancer – Better than Chemo
Keytruda immunotherapy for cancer is better than chemo in the treatment of Merkel cell cancer. So says a recent clinical trial of this immune treatment at Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore....
Coffee Prevents Cancer but 9 out of 10 are making it wrong. #nofilter
Coffee is a healthful habit that helps prevent some kinds of cancer. And Italian-style coffee in particular may prevent cancer of the prostate gland. As a rule, coffee gets a bad rap in medical...
High Fiber Diet Boosts Immunotherapy for Cancer
A high fiber diet boosts immunotherapy for cancer. Melanoma patients had a five-fold greater chance of responding to immune checkpoint drugs when they had a diverse gut microbiome. This could...
Antioxidants and Vitamins in Cancer Treatment and Prevention pt 1
Antioxidants, Vitamins and Cancer There are many philosophical issues that divide the mainstream oncology community from those who practice complementary and/or alternative medicine (CAM), but...
Antioxidants and Vitamins in Cancer Treatment and Prevention pt 2
“The efficacy of chemotherapy against cancer is limited due to drug resistance, treatment selectivity, and severe adverse effects. But combinations with natural products may be used as an...
The Halifax Project
A Three Year StudyIn 2015, Keith I. Block, MD, co-founder of the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Treatment, Skokie, Ill., and 179 other scientists, published a new conceptual model of cancer...
Do Food Supplements Conflict with Cancers of the Immune System?
Supplements and the Immune System Do antioxidants and other immune-boosting supplements promote the growth of cancer cells that are themselves derived from the immune system—particularly...
Cancer Stem Cells and Angiogenesis
Thousands of Studies on CSCsA key characteristic of malignant disease is the central importance of cancer stem cells in a long list of cancer types. CSCs were first characterized at the molecular...
Field Cancerization
Tumor Microenvironments The 360 “Halifax Project” authors, led by Keith I. Block, MD, of Skokie, Ill., added an 11th key characteristic to Hanahan and Weinberg’s classic ten,...
Understanding Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs)
The Battle in the Body Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are like the generals who oversee the battle. They stand high above the fray while directing their troops. They are a minuscule fraction of the...
Hyperthermic Isolated Limb Perfusion (HILP)
A Blood BypassA “blood bypass,” carried out under general anesthesia, involves completely bypassing the affected limb’s blood supply. The main artery and vein supplying the limb are connected to...
Hyperthermia Evidence
Scientific StudiesRandomized Controlled TrialsThe modern scientific acceptance of hyperthermia rests on several outstanding randomized trials: one that was organized in Munich, Germany for the...
Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG)
Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG)Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have commented: “Bacillus Calmette-Guérin is one of the most successful immunotherapies in cancer...
Immune Checkpoint Drug History
The Long History of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors It does not diminish Jim Allison’s remarkable achievements to note that scientists have long known that tumors employ mechanisms to block the...
Fundamentals of Immunotherapy
Fundamental Methods of Immunotherapy Action Active specific immunotherapy (ASI) involves immunizing the patient with tumor cells and/or cell extracts, either alone or in combination with an...
Are Metastases Partly Macrophages?
Wandering Cancer Cells If metastases are, at least, in part due to the activity of macrophages, then these cells already possess most or all of the key characteristics of wandering cancer cells....
Immunotherapy and Other Treatments For Prostate Cancer
Anti-PSA Vaccines Investigated CSF Vaccines Colony stimulating factors are hormone-like substances that accelerate the production of white blood cells. GM-CSF (granulocyte-macrophage...
Dendritic Cell (DC) Vaccines
Are DC Vaccines Established Medicine?Dendritic cells were actually discovered in the 19th century, but the name “dendritic cells” (DCs) was not attached to them until 1973 (by Ralph M. Steinman...