Comments on: The natural remission of cancer

By: Sitemaster

Sitemaster — Sat, 26 May 2012 09:53:03 +0000

Dear Carre: If your husband was initially diagnosed with stage III prostate cancer, this is not early stage. and a cancer of this stage is most unlikely to go into spontaneous remission. However, "we" are not idiots, and I can assure you with complete certainty that spontaneous remissions of cancers do occur, that they are well documented, and that in some cases such remissions have been documented in men with relatively advanced forms of cancer. ... These are not "studies"; they are real cases in real men and women. Furthermore, men diagnosed with stage III prostate cancer can be treated with curative intent (sometimes with with radiation alone although more commonly with a combination of radiation and hormone therapy). If your husband's PSA levels are still falling, he may even be one of them.

By: Carre

Carre — Sat, 26 May 2012 02:52:20 +0000

Are you idiots? My husband "has" stage III prostate cancer. He has had four PSA blood tests that show his PSA levels have dramatically decreased over the last 12 months (after 44 rounds of radiation). He is not "cured", he is not in "remission"! The cancer is still lurking in his body just waiting to attack him. No one surgically removed the cancer. Jesus and/or no other miracle worker made it magically disappear, so your studies are just that: studies. If a person has cancer, does not have it surgically removed, and it is still in their body; just because the cancer is not "active" does not mean it went away to some special hiding place.

By: E. Michael D. ("Mike") Scott

E. Michael D. ("Mike") Scott — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 01:12:08 +0000

Steve: The lack of any identifiable cancer post-prostatectomy in men diagnosed with prostate cancer is actually not that rare. (I mean it's not common, but it is well documented.) The type of immunological boost that I was thinking about would probably be very different from the dendritic cell agents being developed by Dendreon and others. I was actually thinking of something that truly increased the ability of the immune system to respond to any type of "non-self" cells rather than something specific to prostate cancer. Leah: Apparently, according to a book by Gilbert Welch, MD, quoted by Christiane Northrup, MD, "in autopsy studies of healthy women in their 40s who died in car accidents, a striking 40% had evidence of DCIS in a least one area of breast tissue." Now it needs to be said that DCIS is not quite the same thing as an actual diagnosis of breast cancer. (It's more like being told you have high-grade PIN for men.) I have not been able to find the original research to which Welch and Northrup are referring, but to be honest I haven't looked too hard. The breast cancer literature is massive and I have limited experience in that field.

By: Leah

Leah — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:50:09 +0000

It would be interesting to know how many women have breast cancers on autopsy (compared to men with PC).

Leah

By: Steve Z

Steve Z — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:18:51 +0000

It would make sense that the body has its own mechanisms to deal with badly behaved cells. I have read of incidents of biopsy samples that contain cancer that resulted in RPs with no cancer found in the removed prostate.

From the PCRI: “dendritic cells (DC): cells that process antigens (proteins) and present them to immune lymphocytes called T cells playing a major role in the initiation of the immune response against tumor and other types of abnormal cells…” Maybe this is what is involved.

Even if proven correct, it could still a long way from the knowledge to a cure. Provenge seeks to use an enhanced form of this, but is still in testing.