Study Indicates Alternative to Chemotherapy for Lung Cancer

February 2008

A new hope lies on the horizon for lung cancer patients, as researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles expand their dual-drug therapy regimen to a larger group, following positive results reported February 1 in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.

Researcher’s at UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center have found a series of significant biomarkers are reduced when a combination of a common anti-inflammatory drug is combined with a compound known to block cancer growth, and could lead to tests that would show a patient could forego the devastating impact of chemotherapy.

Fifty percent of the patients in the study showed either a reduction in tumor size of up to 30%, or no growth when combining Tarceva with Celebrex. In advanced lung cancer, “no growth” is considered a positive outcome.

Celebrex is the brand name for celecoxib, a medication manufactured by Pfizer for the treatment of arthritis, and is in the family of NonSteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen and naproxen.

The team knew that in previous studies of the growth factor receptor blocker Tarceva, that some patients responded, while others did not, and that tests of blood and urine indicated that their response to the drug seemed to be linked to the amount of cycloxygenase-2 (COX-2) being produced. COX-2 causes inflammation, and is seen in 80% to 85% of lung cancer patients who are suffering from non-small-cell lung cancer.

The team, led by Dr. Steven Dubinett, is hopeful that the second phase of the study will allow oncologists to personalize treatment, prescribing drugs they know patients will respond to and sparing them from therapies that won’t work.

“We need good predictors of response to targeted therapy in lung cancer so individual patients receive the specific therapy that targets the particular molecular abnormalities of their tumors,” said Dubinett in a press release from UCLA.

Source:  Associated Content

[Tracey’s Note:  I know this isn’t an alternative therapy, per se, Mom.  But, it did seem like very interesting information to talk to your doctor about.  I don’t know how toxic either of these substances are on the body, but they do seem to suggest it’s much more tolerable than chemotherapy (which doesn’t really work anyway) and this *did* show promise for reducing tumor size.  That’s why I included it here.]

Why No Chemo? Here’s Why.

The great lack of trust is evident even amongst doctors.  Polls and questionnaires show that three doctors out of four (75 per cent) would refuse any chemotherapy because of its ineffectiveness against the disease and its devastating effects on the entire human organism.  This is what many doctors and scientists have to say about chemotherapy:

“The majority of the cancer patients in this country die because of chemotherapy, which does not cure breast, colon or lung cancer. This has been documented for over a decade and nevertheless doctors still utilize chemotherapy to fight these tumors.” (Allen Levin, MD, UCSF, “The Healing of Cancer”, Marcus Books, 1990).

“If I were to contract cancer, I would never turn to a certain standard for the therapy of this disease. Cancer patients who stay away from these centers have some chance to make it.” (Prof. Gorge Mathe, “Scientific Medicine Stymied”, Medicines Nouvelles, Paris, 1989)

“Dr. Hardin Jones, lecturer at the University of California, after having analyzed for many decades statistics on cancer survival, has come to this conclusion: ‘… when not treated, the patients do not get worse or they even get better’. The unsettling conclusions of Dr. Jones have never been refuted”. (Walter Last, “The Ecologist”, Vol. 28, no. 2, March-April 1998)

“Many oncologists recommend chemotherapy for almost any type of cancer, with a faith that is unshaken by the almost constant failures”.(Albert Braverman, MD, “Medical Oncology in the 90s”, Lancet, 1991, Vol. 337, p. 901)

“Our most efficacious regimens are loaded with risks, side effects and practical problems; and after all the patients we have treated have paid the toll, only a miniscule percentage of them is paid off with an ephemeral period of tumoral regression and generally a partial one” (Edward G. Griffin “World Without Cancer”, American Media Publications, 1996)

“After all, and for the overwhelming majority of the cases, there is no proof whatsoever that chemotherapy prolongs survival expectations. And this is the great lie about this therapy, that there is a correlation between the reduction of cancer and the extension of the life of the patient”. (Philip Day, “Cancer: Why we’re still dying to know the truth”, Credence Publications, 2000)

“Several full-time scientists at the McGill Cancer Center sent to 118 doctors, all experts on lung cancer, a questionnaire to determine the level of trust they had in the therapies they were applying; they were asked to imagine that they themselves had contracted the disease and which of the six current experimental therapies they would choose. 79 doctors answered, 64 of them said that they would not consent to undergo any treatment containing cis-platinum – one of the common chemotherapy drugs they used – while 58 out of 79 believed that all the experimental therapies above were not accepted because of the ineffectiveness and the elevated level of toxicity of chemotherapy.” (Philip Day, “Cancer: Why we’re still dying to know the truth”, Credence Publications, 2000)

“Doctor Ulrich Able, a German epidemiologist of the Heidelberg Mannheim Tumor Clinic, has exhaustively analyzed and reviewed all the main studies and clinical experiments ever performed on chemotherapy …. Able discovered that the comprehensive world rate of positive outcomes because of chemotherapy was frightening, because, simply, nowhere was scientific evidence available demonstrating that chemotherapy is able to ‘prolong in any appreciable way the life of patients affected by the most common type of organ cancer.’ Able highlights that rarely can chemotherapy improve the quality of life, and he describes it as a scientific squalor while maintaining that at least 80 per cent of chemotherapy administered in the world is worthless. Even if there is no scientific proof whatsoever that chemotherapy works, neither doctors nor patients are prepared to give it up (Lancet, Aug. 10, 1991). None of the main media has ever mentioned this exhaustive study: it has been completely buried” (Tim O’Shea, “Chemotherapy – An Unproven Procedure”)