Recently I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Dr Carl Helvie for the USA based Holistic health Show. Dr. Carl was a relatively young man when he was diagnosed with lung cancer and told he had six months to live. Instead, he made a decision to fight back with something other than the traditional conventional medicine he was offered.
Introducing Dr Carl O Helvie: Recently I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Dr Carl Helvie for the USA based Holistic Health Show. Dr. Carl was a relatively young man when he was diagnosed with lung cancer and told he had six months to live. Instead, he made a decision to fight back with something other than the traditional conventional medicine he was offered. Amongst the millions of diagnosed cancer patients, his type of total, long term remission is a rare event. When a histologically proven cancer goes into remission we must always be open to asking ‘Why’? Also in Dr Carl’s favor is that he is a well qualified, well credentialed and highly intelligent man who has dedicated his life to helping others diagnosed with cancer. Just occasionally someone comes along like Dr Carl who has managed to recover from cancer without conventional medicine. Remember the story of Deborah Franke Ogg whose stage 4 nodular lymphoma went in to remission. (hear my interview with Deborah at Voice America
Dr Carl O Helvie at 80 years young – one of the longest living lung cancer survivors.
Dr Carl Helvie also has an extraordinary story. A registered nurse with two masters and a doctorate in public health and wellness, Dr. Carl Helvie has decades of experience as a nurse practitioner, educator, author and researcher. He is the recipient of numerous awards with listings in Who’s Who In American Nursing, Men of Achievement, American Men and Women of Science, just to name a few. He has eight published books as well as being a contributor to others, and has published or presented internationally over 100 papers and articles. He retired from academia in 2000 and in 2002, taught at the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt, Germany and served as a nursing consultant to Russia.
He developed and published a nursing theory now used worldwide and has established a nursing center that provides primary care for homeless and low-income individuals and families. While 89% of Americans over age 65 have some form of chronic illness and by age 75 can expect to have three chronic illnesses and be taking five prescribed medications daily – Dr Carl’s prescription; today, this healthy 80-year-old man takes no prescribed medications and is one of the longest living lung cancer survivors.
Select the URL below to listen to Dr Carl as he asks me in depth questions about my life and why and how I teach survival skills for those with life challenging illness or conditions:
On today’s edition of Navigating the Cancer Maze, Grace Gawler interviews Dr Horst Lindhoffer PhD about one of the most innovative and exciting cancer immunotherapy treatment breakthroughs in many years. Visit germancancertreatments.com for more information.
On Navigating the Cancer Maze – Cancer Immunotherapy – Ground-breaking treatment in Cancer Medicine Grace Gawler -August 2, 2013
“Destroying cancer stem cells means fighting cancer at its roots”, says Horst Lindhofer, CEO of TRION Pharma. “Catumaxomab’s efficacy against this particularly aggressive and resistant population of cancer cells further supports its therapeutic potential for the treatment of EpCAM-positive carcinomas.”
On today’s edition of Navigating the Cancer Maze, I interview Dr Horst Lindhoffer PhD about one of the most innovative and exciting cancer treatment breakthroughs in many years. We know that The human immune system is usually quite effective at identifying and eliminating abnormal cells.
Dr Horst Lindhofer
Cancer cells, however, can form tumors and spread throughout the body. Although chaotic in their behavior, cancer cells operate with high level intelligence to escape detection by our immune system’s control mechanisms. Often misunderstood, this is a fundamental principle in understanding how cancer cells behave and how immune recognition can be assisted. The new breakthrough cancer treatments capitalize on that information. It has been a long-standing vision of physicians and scientists to develop a treatment that can put the immune system back on track. TRION has achieved the goal with its trifunctional Triomab® antibodies. Listen to learn more or contact grace@germancancertreatments.com for further details.
Listen to this interview at: http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/72038/cancer-immunotherapy-ground-breaking-treatment-in-cancer-medicine
Catumaxomab (Removab®) is presently the only approved therapeutic antibody targeting EpCAM, a surface antigen that is widely expressed in the most frequent forms of human cancer. On April 20th this year, Removab® received EU approval for the intraperitoneal treatment of malignant ascites in patients with EpCAM-positive carcinomas. Removab® is the first product world-wide to receive a regulatory approval for this indication. With its trifunctional mode of action, Removab® represents a new generation of antibodies using the body’s own immune system to help fight the tumor cells.
EpCAM: EpCAM or epithelial cell adhesion molecule is a pan-epithelial differentiation antigen that is expressed on almost all carcinomas, such as breast, lung, colorectal, gastric, prostate and ovarian cancer. Catumaxomab (Removab®) is the only approved anti-EpCAM antibody available.
Triomab®: Trifunctional antibodies : Triomab® antibodies bind to cancer-specific surface antigens and recruit both T cells as well as accessory cells, such as macrophages, dendritic cells and natural killer cells, to the tumor site. As a result, they provide for a new quality of cancer cell killing, activating both arms of the immune system – the adaptive one with cytotoxic T cells as effectors and the innate one including accessory effector cells.
dendritic cell image
Triomab® antibodies are therefore very effective in destroying cancer cells and show a therapeutic effect at very low doses. Triomab® antibodies are a development of TRION Pharma GmbH Catumaxomab was invented by TRION Pharma and has been developed with Fresenius Biotech.
I am in a very privileged position having specifically worked as a cancer recovery strategist for almost 40 years. Age, experience and serving 15,000 clients during that period enables me to appreciate history, see trends, learn the mistakes and rejoice in the successes while examining present gains and looking to the future. As a veteran I have witnessed the gradual evolution of a one size fits all approach in both sides of medicine; conventional and alternative. The new culture of survivorship is based on a highly targeted, personalized and intelligent approach.
However, as personalized medicine is in its infancy, it is far from perfect, as professionals juggle for new definitions in this rapidly changing paradigm. For example, many of my colleagues describe personalized medicine in its parts, such as phenotype, targets for antibodies, genetics and molecules failing to mention the most important person in personalized medicine – the patient! This has long been the issue with conventional medicine, but now even natural therapies are following suit.
The alternative medicine cancer cure culture have realized that cancer is more complex to treat than they possibly imagined. Despite doing ‘all the right things’; veganism, juicing, meditation, and positive thinking; their tumours are still growing!
Below: Professor Thomas Vogel Frankfurt: the new ways of delivering cancer therapies
Grace Gawler DHM (dist) DBSc ATMS Mem IPOS (International Society for Psycho-Psychologyhas been involved with teaching cancer survival strategies for more than 38 years. Trained as an Herbalist/ Naturopath with an early background, working in veterinary medicine, over the years Grace became a pro-life cancer coach and trained in body psychotherapy. She co-founded Australia’s first Cancer Support groups and residential courses and has worked throughout the world in the area of cancer as a public and keynote speaker and workshop facilitator. She has chosen to emphasize the emotional-psycho-spiritual aspect of cancer recovery and management at all stages. Grace learned a great deal when in 1997 unexpected post-surgical complications from a routine surgery left her with colon paralysis. After 21 surgeries geared at keeping her alive Grace eventually found her solution – an experimental ‘bionic’ sacro-neuromodulation implant performed in Holland. The procedure was a ‘world first’ for this condition. Grace had her life back knowing what it was like to be in the shoes of a patient with a life threatening condition. She wrote her memoir Grace, Grit and Gratitude in 2008 to celebrate her survival.
As Founder and Director of the Grace Gawler Institute, Grace can now help patients to find Integrated cancer Solutions. She helps patients to transform the challenge, PTSD, fear and myriad of emotional issues surrounding cancer into becoming a successful patient – the best one can be whatever the outcome. She works in conjunction with medical oncology and integrative oncology clinics in Australia and Europe assisting patients with fully supported medi-tours to Hallwang Private Oncology Clinic in Germany’s Black Forest. You can listen to Grace’s US-based free to air internet radio show Navigating the Cancer Maze on Voice America’s Health and Wellness channel. www.voiceamerica.com/show/2125/navigating-the-cancer-maze
The answer to treating liver, lung and difficult to resect tumours…bringing tumour reduction, wellbeing and increasing longevity – Prof Thomas Vogl and Hallwang private Oncology Clinic patient interviews on….
VoiceAmerica and WorldTalk Radio
The answer to treating liver, lung and difficult to resect tumours…bringing tumour reduction, wellbeing and increasing longevity – Prof Thomas Vogl on….VoiceAmerica and WorldTalk Radio Health and Wellness Channel: Navigating the Cancer Maze with Grace Gawler
Navigating the Cancer Maze with Professor Thomas Vogl discussing innovative German treatments
March 29, 2013
Don’t miss listening to my conversation with Prof Thomas Vogl talking about innovative solutions to treating Cancer, including mesothelioma. Professor Vogl is Chairman Department of Radiology University of Frankfurt- Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology Germany. His institute is in a position to offer a total of ten interventional methods for the therapy of a variety of tumors, metastases and recidivist tumors. Frankfurt, Germany has become a primary cancer center in Euorope offering outstanding service in interventional conventional oncological therapies like chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy, TACE trans arterial chemo-embolisation while transarterial chemoperfusion (TACP), and transpulmonary chemoembolization (TPCE) have become particularly viable methods for the treatment of malignant tumors in the lung. Prof Vogl works in close collaboration with Hallwang Private Oncology Clinic in Germany’s Black Forest, making a powerful team in solutions-focussed cancer medicine.
ABOUT TACE: Normal liver tissue recieves 75% of its blood supply from the portal circulation and 25%from the liver (hepatic artery). On the other hand, liver tumours or metastases receive more than 95%of their blood supply from the hepatic artery alone.
Local injection of a chemotherapeutic agent into the area ensures the delivery of the chemotherapy in a concentration up to 100 times more than what is achieved when the chemotherapeutic agent is given systemically while usual systemic side effects are minimised owing to the local injection of the drugs.
In addition, embolising the branches of the hepatic artery which supply the tumour will cause selective ischemia and death of the tumour while the normal liver tissue will maintain its blood supply through its main source of supply – the portal vein. The reduced blood supply to the tumour causes tumour starvation and at the same time delays the washout of the chemotherapy from the tumour area. Thus the effect of the chemotherapeutic agent is maximised by increasing the duration of contact between the drug and the tumour which can last up to several weeks.
Left: Multiple liver cancer metastases. Right: after 3 sessions TACE
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Be inspired with authentic hope: Listen to my interview with Prof Vogl and interviews with patients who have undergone the TACE procedure at :
During our time in Germany (March-April) as guests of Dr Ursual Jacob’s clinic, we were introduced to many outstanding cancer specialists. Many patients travel to Germany hoping that there is an alternative medicine cure for their cancer and many are disappointed to discover that it is the conventional medicine offered in Germany that forms the majority of the treatment plan. Complementary adjunct treatments are used to assist the body to tolerate some treatments and while helping to build resistance to recurrence of cancer. However just as we have innovators in medicine here in Australia, so too does Germany and from my personal experience; the Netherlands is out there in innovative medical techniques. Where these innovators differ from our conventional medicine is that chemotherapy is often delivered to a patient via different way. The German Clinics have many different techniques to obliterate and control tumours; here are some of them.
The Liver – an amazing organ!
For the purpose of this blog I will focus on liver cancer; secondary liver from primary bowel cancer primary liver cancer and breast cancer that has spread to the liver. Because the outcomes of liver cancer are often poor the public perception is that there is little that can be done. This is likely why so many of the liver cancer patients we see; have taken the route of alternative medicine, meditation and dietary approaches; abandoning conventional medicine. Patients will often say they feel well while practising these lifestyle approaches; but they come to see me because their tumours continue to grow and they need a solution….quickly.
We have already discussed the value of hyperthermia/oncothermia as a part of clinical treatment for cancer including liver cancer. If you missed these blogs then here is the link: Select each linked heading on the page – there are a number of excellent videos embedded in each blog for your interest.
So – here are a few of the German Cancer Treatments that are being effectively and successfully used for liver cancer.
At the University of Frankfurt, we are introduced to Prof Vogl. He welcomes us to his section of the university then it’s down to business. Everything about his demeanour gives an air of precision, excellence, efficiency and when we see him performing his crafts – Chemoperfusion and chemoembolisation – we are suitably impressed!
Gowned up in lead aprons we film the day procedures. We watch on a screen as the chemo is delivered directly in to the tumour as Chemoperfusion is performed via entry into the femoral artery of the patient with a special catheter guided to the liver. We are told that application of chemotherapy through the major arteries into the liver arteries allows one to achieve a concentration 100 times higher than by systemic approach with only minimal adverse effects.
Transarterial Chemoembolisation TACE Embolising (blocks) the branches of the hepatic artery which supply the tumour causing starvation of blood supply and death of the tumour while the normal liver tissue will retain its blood supply through the portal vein. The washout of the concentrated chemotherapy is also delayed when using this method. The half-life of chemotherapeutic agent is increased by hours to weeks through the stoppage of blood supply.
In TACE, the knowledge of difference in blood supply to the tumour and liver tissue is used. Up to 75% of the normal liver tissue is perfused by the portal venous system and only 25% is supplied by arteries. On the contrary, liver tumours are supplied up to 95% by arteries. Hence chemoembolization of liver arteries lead to development of ischemic necrosis in the tumour region while the remaining normal liver tissue is spared by sufficient perfusion through the portal venous system.
Then there is another armoury that can be used for liver (and other cancers) LITT – Laser induced interstitial thermotherapy.
Development of LITT
The present form of laser therapy has been developed by Prof. Vogl and Prof. Dr. Mack in close co-operation with Dr.Roggan from Laser and Medicine Technology GmbH (LMTB), Berlin, Germany. The procedure is continuouslyoptimised and used routinely in clinical practice with greatsuccess.
How it works: In practise a temperature of about 60 to 110° C is achieved in the tumour tissue. This differentiates LITT from the classical hyperthermia.
The use of local thermal effect in the tumour region forms the basis for this new minimal invasive therapeutic procedure. The energy of laser light is absorbed, which causes heating of the tissue. The heat causes coagulation (destruction) of tumour tissue and the edge around it. LITT can be effectively used in may cases of unresectable cancer (by surgery) or for patients who failed a liver resection.
According to the professor, it is scientifically proven that local resection or destruction of liver metastases prolongs the life of patients and chemotherapy is then to be preferred.
LITT can also be tried as an alternative therapy for patients who refuse surgical resection and systemic or local chemotherapy.
If any of this information interests you, The Grace Gawler Institute is personally escorting patient groups to Dr Ursula Jacob’s clinic -Dr Jacob refers patients to her associate Prof. Vogl. These treatments mentioned above are often a part of a clinical treatment plan for the best results. We caution patients not to travel to germany self-referred and ill prepared – we have heard of many disatrous results when patients go in desperation. Such a decision needs a well composed plan and follow up when patients return to Australia. We have pioneered our guided patient tours believing it is the most responsible and ethical way to support cancer patients who need these therapies. With Thanks to Professor Vogl for some of the material used in this blog.
More on German cancer treatments, the specialists we met and their techniques in my next blog.
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