Release date: 2014-02-26 In recent years, bio-therapy advertisements for cancer have been particularly rampant. Among them, there are many public hospitals, how to identify the scams and false words? If there are hospitals claiming to be new inventions in this hospital, or unique new immunotherapy in the country or Biological therapy can definitely be deceptive. If a hospital or individual boasted that his new biological therapy cure rate is staggering, and no other institutions repeat the verification, it is almost certainly a liar. Source: Southern Weekend Head Massage,Head Massage Spa,Best Head Massager,Relaxing Head Massage Shenzhen Jie Zhong Lian Investment Co., Ltd. , https://www.szmeizonscares.com
In various media such as the Internet, television, and newspapers, a variety of medical advertisements can always be seen. Among them, cancer treatment advertisements are especially numerous, and they are especially attractive. Because cancer patients are mostly faced with life and death choices, they often do not hesitate to go bankrupt. Among them, biotherapy advertisements for cancer have been particularly rampant in recent years. Search online for Chinese cancer and biological therapy, and get 860,000 results. Point in and see, many boast that the treatment effect is amazing, how many cancer patients are cured, and there are many public hospitals. It seems that biotherapy has become the mainstream of cancer treatment and has become the last hope of cancer patients.
Ordinary people probably know that the main treatments for cancer at this stage include surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Unfortunately, despite the great progress made by these mainstream methods, many early cancers have been cured, but the overall efficacy is still not ideal. The side effects are large and the curative effect is not ideal, which will inevitably lead us to seek other better solutions. Biological therapy has emerged in such an environment. Coupled with the propaganda of the newspapers and magazines, the late-stage cancer patients who are holding dead horses and living horse doctors have turned their eyes to this biological therapy that sounds very promising and very intimate. However, a large part of this is a scam, or an unproven treatment. It is lightly said that it is a psychological use of patients who are rushing to go to the hospital, and it is said that it will delay the formal and effective treatment, resulting in wasted precious time. It is no different from life.
Therefore, it is necessary to popularize the actual status of current cancer biotherapy. Which biological therapies are real and effective?
What is biological therapy First, you have to figure out what biological therapy is cancer.
The biological therapy of cancer, also known as immunotherapy, is the same meaning. This kind of therapy uses the body's own part of the immune system to attack cancer cells, thereby achieving the purpose of inhibiting or killing cancer cells. The earliest known cancer immunotherapy was thought to have been initiated by the American doctor William Coley (1862-1936) in the early 19th century. At that time, we still knew nothing about the body's immune system. In the course of treating cancer patients, Dr. Collet accidentally discovered that patients who were unfortunately infected after surgery seemed to be helpful in treating cancer. So, the bold Collet began experimenting in his own clinic. He deliberately infected cancer patients with certain bacteria that produce toxins in the body, and some patients really showed good results. This toxin is called Coley toxin by later generations. He was prepared to continue the experiment, but was quickly defeated by the rapidly developing chemotherapy and radiotherapy at that time. Because although chemotherapy is very effective at the time, bacterial infections can be fatal.
Since then, surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy have become the mainstay of cancer treatment. Immunotherapy has been put aside for a while because we know very little about the body's immune system and we can't do anything about it. However, medicine is progressive. For two centuries, our understanding of immunization has gone deeper. Advances in various biotechnologies have also made it possible to synthesize various biological agents. Various studies have emerged in an endless stream. Because of its novelity, small side effects, accurate targets and clear curative effects, immunotherapy has received increasing attention from the medical community. In the past ten years, it has grown by leaps and bounds, and gradually has become the fourth choice after surgery for radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Before introducing specific immunotherapy, let's talk about what is the immune system. Our immune system is an army of organs, cells or certain substances that protect us from the invasion of foreign bacteria. The immune system includes bone marrow, spleen, tonsils, lymph nodes, and the like. The cells produced by these organs or some immune substances can be transported throughout the body through blood circulation, killing foreign pathogens and protecting our health. Simply put, these pathogens are the invaders of our bodies, and the immune system is the army of our defending country.
How does this army distinguish between the enemy and the enemy? The miraculous immune army has the ability to identify its own people when it is born. If it is a cell that you have, the immune system knows your own person and does not attack. But in the face of strange faces, such as foreign bacteria, the leading troops will sound an alarm, attracting a large group of people, driving it out or killing. Cancer cells are also different from normal cells. The surface of cancer cells often has special proteins that normal cells will not have. Once the immune system is encountered, it can recognize that it is not its own cells and start to attack.
But unfortunately, our immune system's ability to recognize and attack bacteria or viruses far exceeds that of cancer cells. Cancer cells are much more rampant than foreign bacteria or viruses. Their surface features are not so obvious, more like a traitor to our cell army, it is easy to fish, the immune system is difficult to distinguish between the enemy and me, not daring to start. Sometimes, even if the traitor is discovered, because the army that can be summoned is too little or too weak, it is not enough for cancer cells. Therefore, our own immunity has limited ability to inhibit cancer cells, and most of the time we can do nothing. This is why people with normal immune systems still get cancer.
To use the immune system to attack cancer cells, you have to teach the immune system to identify which cancer cells, and you must strengthen your immune attack to eliminate this hidden traitor. This is also the direction of the efforts of researchers in various countries.
What immunotherapy is there at this stage?
One is to strengthen the attack on cancer cells by stimulating its own immune system, or to train the immune system to specifically target certain parts of the tumor. The other is to artificially synthesize certain immune components, such as synthetic anti-cancer antibodies, which are then injected into the bloodstream. These components either attack the cancer cells by activating the immune response, or simply attack specific parts of the cancer cells, making the cancer cells ineffective. Growing, the end is dead.
Therapeutic therapies that are currently clinically in use and proven to be effective are mainly these immunotherapies:
Monoclonal antibodies: This is a cancer-specific antibody that is synthesized by synthesis. Because this antibody is specifically designed for cancer cell synthesis, it can be designed to be very precise, so it is very aggressive against cancer. The advantage is strong specificity and small side effects. There are also many shortcomings, which require repeated injections. Because of the difficulty in synthesis, it is expensive and cannot enter the inside of cancer cells. It requires a large amount of use, short duration of action, and causes adverse immune reactions or toxicity.
Cancer vaccine: Vaccines are familiar to everyone and are usually used to prevent viral infections. However, certain synthetic vaccines can activate immune responses against cancer cells in vivo, and are therefore used as a means of preventing cancer or immunotherapy.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors: Some substances in the human body are called immune checkpoints, also called human immune brakes. Play a role in telling the immune system to stop attacking normal cells. Awkward cancer cells use this checkpoint to evade immune attacks. Therefore, inhibitors using such checkpoint substances can also play a role in anticancer.
Cytokines: Cytokines are a class of substances that activate non-specific immune responses. Use them to enhance the immune response and attack cancer cells.
Non-specific immunotherapy: This method is to broaden the body's immune ability to achieve the purpose of attacking cancer cells. Obviously, the specificity is very poor and the effect will not be too good. If you are not good, you may be over-immune, leading to autoimmune diseases.
There are also some immunotherapy in the experimental phase. For example, in vitro culture of lymphocytes (LAK cells) that specifically attack cancer cells. This LAK cell is cultured in vitro and then returned to the body, which will strongly attack cancer cells and achieve good results. This clinical trial has achieved remarkable results in the United States in the near future, but unfortunately, it is still in the experimental phase, and it is still far from being approved for large-scale clinical use.
The other is called tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). This cell is a special lymphocyte inside the tumor. After they are separated from the tumor, they are activated in large quantities by special factors in vitro, and then returned to the human body. These cells become special forces that attack cancer cells. The effect of this therapy in the early trials is exciting, but unfortunately it is still in the experimental stage, it is too early to be clinical.
What are the effective drugs So far, what immunotherapy is approved by authoritative departments, such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has clinical trials confirmed that it is effective?
We categorize it.
Let me talk about anti-cancer monoclonal antibodies. The anti-cancer antibodies currently approved for clinical use are:
1. Toximab (rituximab), the earliest approved anti-cancer antibody for lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
2. Alemtumumab (Alemtuzumab) is also used for chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
3. Bevacizumab, used to treat lung cancer, metastatic colorectal cancer, kidney cancer and brain tumors.
4. Brentuximab? Vedotin antibody for the treatment of recurrent Hodgkin's lymphoma and degenerative large cell lymphoma.
5. Cetuximab (Cetuximab) for the treatment of colorectal cancer, head and neck skin cancer.
6. Gemtuzumab, for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia.
7. Ibritumomab for the treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
8. Ipilimumab, used to treat melanoma metastasis.
9. Anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody (Ofatumumab) for adult chronic lymphocytic leukemia 10. Panitumumab (Panitumumab) for the treatment of colorectal cancer metastasis.
11. Tositumomab, a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that is ineffective for chemotherapy.
12. Herceptin, or trastuzumab, is used to treat breast cancer.
13. Pertuzumab, also used to treat breast cancer.
There is currently only one anticancer vaccine approved for clinical use, Provenge. This vaccine was approved for the treatment of prostate cancer in 2010. There are three vaccines for cancer prevention, including human papillomavirus vaccine, hepatitis A vaccine and hepatitis B vaccine. Unfortunately, the former mainland China has not yet passed the approval.
In addition, there are some non-specific immune drugs. The most commonly used are interferon Interferon and interfering immune system molecule Interleukin. However, the curative effect is limited and the side effects are quite numerous, making it difficult to become a mainstream treatment.
These are all immunotherapy treatments for cancer that have been proven to be effective in rigorous clinical trials.
How to identify scams Due to the regulatory confusion in the domestic pharmaceutical market, many hospitals are taking advantage of the so-called new inventions and new creations that are still in the experimental stage for clinical treatment. This not only violates the medical guidelines, but also may bring a heavy financial burden to cancer patients, and even delay the formal and effective treatment. Therefore, please remember that any hospital that claims to be a new invention of this hospital, or a new immunization or biological therapy unique in the country, is deceptive.
Some research institutions do have some new inventions for the creation of immunotherapy, and patients are ineffective in other therapies. Is it not acceptable to accept this new biological treatment? Is it better to give up and die? In a normal, strict medical management The society, such an experimental phase of the trial is not able to treat patients as a clinical treatment. This is medically known as a clinical trial. Patients who voluntarily participate in the trial need to be informed in advance that this is an trial, and it is not possible to charge the patients who participated in the trial, except for the necessary material expenses. The fees and pre-information are absolutely different in nature.
So how do you know which ones are formal and reasonable, what are the approved cancer immunotherapy, and which are the scams? In addition to looking at the approved immunotherapy listed above, let me know a few easy ways to identify:
1. Medical scams often claim to be unique. Normal medical care will not be like this. A new cancer treatment or drug is the result of time-consuming and laborious research that takes many years to participate. In modern medicine, almost no one has made new medical breakthroughs on his own, let alone complicated cancer biological treatment. To take a step back, even if a genius invents a new treatment by himself, it still needs to be published in academic journals, and then repeated verification by other medical institutions to ensure that the results are not caused by personal deviations.
2. Medical liar always complains that he has a secret, but other pharmaceutical companies or mainstream medical circles suppress them in order to safeguard their interests. It is impossible for the medical profession to do this. When you hear this, you will hear "I am a liar."
3. Miraculous effect. If it doesn't sound like it's true, then it's probably not true. Despite the variety of immunotherapies mentioned above, unfortunately, the results have not been ideal so far. If a hospital or individual boasted that his new biotherapeutic cure rate is staggering and there is no other institution to repeat the verification, then it can almost be judged to be a liar.
4. Take the case with a few cases. Each patient's condition is different, the human body responds differently to treatment, and a person has achieved good results, which does not mean that the therapy must be effective. Behind a patient who proves to be effective, there may be hundreds of invalid patients hidden. To prove that a new treatment is effective, it is necessary to do clinical trials involving hundreds of thousands of people for several years. Other than that, it is a scam.
Which cancer biotherapies are deceptive?