Thanks again for all your input!

Allan.

>Hi! Great letter and very concise.
>
>The only thing I would make comment on is to ask if PET
>scanning is available to you? Whilst CT scanning is still
>used, it is my understanding that PET scanning is far more
>clearer in diagnosising (and clarifying)secondary lesions.
>
>I hope you get answers to your many questions...I'll be
>watching with interest.
>
>Best wishes to your aunt and your family.
>
>Kylie

>I would try to answer some of your questions and give you
>some advice from our experience.
>
>Yes, we have seen tumor markers flying just after chemo, and
>returned to much lower values a few weeks later. Your
>explanation is very possible. Tumor markers are not reliable
>in evaluating disease status, and oncologists pay little
>attention on those. The most informative test is CT.

Thanks, that makes us breath a little easier as we weren't sure if this is common or not. I guess we can only wait and see what the next test will show.

>
>Disease progression is possible even while on chemo, but it
>is also possible a wrong CT evaluation about possible bone
>mets. Regarding PET scan suggested by Kylie, I don’t think
>it could make you wiser. PET scan is never clear and has
>meaning only when it is compared to a previous one. At this
>point, it will not give much information.

Good point. As noted in my response to Kylie, we will likely still pursue a PET scan but will only use it in the context of another such scan and in the meantime rely primarily on her CT scans.

>
>A better thing that you can do is to take a Chemosensitivity
>test. You send 25 ml of blood and they isolate circulating
>cancerous cells. They develop several culture of these
>cells, and tests to find in what chemos or substances they
>are sensitive. You can ask them to check if DCA is effective
>or not. More explanation and also four samples of such tests
>you can find here: http://www.atmctx.com/cancer-test/. The
>cost is about 1300 $US, but I think it is worth taking. My
>sister has done two tests already, and we are going to do
>one more in order to better decide about her next treatment.
>There is a wealth of information you can take from this
>test. There is long discussion between cancer specialists on
>these test, but so far they are not mainstream. Some
>oncologists use them (like ours), but others not. People
>than know me in this forum can assure you that I am not a
>dealer of anything. I really believe in this test and this
>is the only reason I strongly suggest it. It has helped us a
>lot to organize what to take and what not. There are so many
>things that might help and it is really difficult to decide.
>

That does sound like an attractive option. I'm guessing this is not the same as the Chemo-Fit test discussed on the Medicor website being as this one only requires a blood sample?

Assuming this is not the Chemo-Fit test, would you recommend one over the other or do you think doing both might be better yet?

>Another suggestion is to consider LDN. It is a very powerful
>treatment. Here you can find a discussion on LDN and also
>some very good links:
>http://www.thedcasite.com/dcaforum/DCForumID10/161.html
>She can start LDN right now, while on chemo. I think LDN is
>better than OGF injections, but it takes about 6 months to
>start working.

OGF actually originated from results by initial LDN therapy. Naltraxone is an opioid antagonist which blocks the opioid receptors in your body from being activated (including the ones OGF binds to). When given in a low dose it only blocks them temporarily and partially, leading to feedback mechanisms in your body to either up-regulate the receptors (express more of these receptors on the cell membrane thereby increasing their sensitivity to the circulating OGF) or make your body produce more endogenous OGF, which again would increase its overall effects in the body.

The problem with LDN therapy is that while it is cheaper and easier to obtain it does not allow you to take any opioid drugs for pain relief, which my aunt is on (Oxycontin). It also seems more logical to me that increasing the exogenous OGF would likely yield more direct results as compared with LDN therapy which puts you on cycles where OGF's activity is blocked temporarily and relies heavily on your body's response to this blockage and the overall amount of endogenous OGF your body produces (which may or may not be impaired in cancer patients). None the less, if you happen to have some information in this regard that I don't I would appreciate you sharing it with me as our strategy to fight her cancer is continuously evolving.

>
>I wish you best luck for your aunt, and Happy Hollidays.
>
>Dimitris

Thanks again for your reply and all the best to your and your sister,

Allan.

ORT (Medicor's chemofit) require tissue from a tumor. This has two disadvantages. It can be used only after tumor resection, and in case of metastases, different tumors might have different characteristics. RGCC test is simpler, since it requires only 20-25 ml of blood, and examines CTCs that contain populations from all tumors, not just one of them. Also, they give you a lot of information, like receptor overexpration, sensitivity to 40 different supplements, and sensitivity to temperture and radiation. Download some reports from the link above, and you will see excactly what information you can obtain.

As far as I know there are several labs that do CS/CR tests and use kits from diferent companies. These labs don't advertise, maybe because they are affraid the establishment, since they are not approved yet. Frankly speaking, I don't know which one of these two is the best, and I don't know if there is a better one.
RGCC is located in northern Greece, so it is more convienient for me.

>The problem with LDN therapy is that while it is cheaper and
>easier to obtain it does not allow you to take any opioid
>drugs for pain relief, which my aunt is on (Oxycontin).

From what I have learned these two years, opioids are not good for cancer patients since they downgrade immune system. So, if it is possible, your aunt should try steroids for pain relief.

(A.K.) We are in the process of getting a new oncologist right now. I can't tell you how frustrating a problem it is to find a good one. We have spoken to so many so far and most strike me as the closed minded types that aren't willing to explore less conventional or less proven but promising treatments. To them she is just a patient of course, but I doubt they would have the same attitude if this was a loved one.

I know that I personally have resigned myself to the conclusion that to beat her cancer we are going to have to employ everything that we can find.

The good news is that I think we have found a good doctor who seems open minded and is willing to consider things that aren't the standard of care. So now that looks like its taken care of I think the next step would be to try and sift through the many possible adjuvant therapies we could try and I think this test lands itself well to that. I'll read up some more on it soon and let you know my final conclusion or if I have other question. Probably will also run this by the doc to see what he thinks and will post his recommendations here should he have any.

>
>
>>The problem with LDN therapy is that while it is cheaper and
>>easier to obtain it does not allow you to take any opioid
>>drugs for pain relief, which my aunt is on (Oxycontin).
>
>From what I have learned these two years, opioids are not
>good for cancer patients since they downgrade immune system.
>So, if it is possible, your aunt should try steroids for
>pain relief.

(A.K.)You know I have heard that as well and being as OGF is involved in negative cell proliferation signaling its not such a stretch to imagine that other opioid signaling pathways may contribute to proliferation. But that does raise the question of why aren't anti inflammatory steroids used more often for pain relief in cancer patients. I will discuss this with the doc as well and see what he says - will post any followup here.

Allan.

A month ago my sister had a second round of regional chemotherapy (stop-flow) and remained completely without food for 46 hours. Then she ate her first meal 23 hours after treatemnt. The results were really good. She lost no hair at all, she had a lot of apetite, and felt no tired, so could walk long distance just two days after chemo. The only side effect was a little drop in white blood cells (WBC) that went up again with proper medication.

At her first treatment she had lost a lot of hairs, had big drop in WBC and for more than a week she was feeling very tired. We are waiting for the new CT to see if tumor shrinkage was also good. However, the difference in side effects between the first and the second treatment is remarkable.

Searching around, I found that some patients have tried 72 hour starvation with very good results. At the original experiment, mice had done very well with only 48 hour starvation, and it is better achievable.

http://www.thedcasite.com/dcaforum/DCForumID10/446.html

If you happen to have and could share, we would appreciate more anecdotal evidence to support this practice like the kind dimitrisk provided about his sister, as that will likely make them feel significantly more comfortable about trying it in the future, regardless of the doc's recommendation. In the meantime we are seeing some good early results from using Krestin PSK/PSP (the Japanese mushroom extract) in terms of alleviating some of the chemo side effects. She finished two days of chemo administration this past Thu. and so far there is not much change in how she feels from baseline; hopefully that will stay the same.

Allan.

I undertand how difficult is staying without food for so long, but usually cancer patients have low apetite and can manage it better.

In case she decides to do starvation option, it might be better to go for the regular chemo dose every 3 weeks, or whatever the right chemo protocol is. Also, I think that hospitaliazion while on chemo would be a good idea. Just for 1 day before and 1 day after.

Low dose chemo is used for long term administration and its purpose is not tumor shrinkage but rather to slow down desease progression.