Posted on 12/08/2013 4:15:24 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Nick Wilkins was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 4 years old, and when the cancer kept bouncing back, impervious to all the different treatments the doctors tried, his father sat him down for a talk.
John Wilkins explained to Nick, who was by then 14, that doctors had tried chemotherapy, radiation, even a bone marrow transplant from his sister.
"I explained to him that we're running out of options," Wilkins remembers telling his son.
There was one possible treatment they could try: an experimental therapy at the University of Pennsylvania. He asked his son if he understood what it would mean if this treatment didn't work.
"He understood he could die," Wilkins says. "He was very stoic."
A few months later, Nick traveled from his home in Virginia to Philadelphia to become a part of the experiment.
This new therapy was decidedly different from the treatments he'd received before: Instead of attacking his cancer with poisons like chemotherapy and radiation, the Philadelphia doctors taught Nick's own immune cells to become more adept at killing the cancer.
Two months later, he emerged cancer-free. It's been six months since Nick, now 15, received the personalized cell therapy, and doctors still can find no trace of leukemia in his system.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
Fantastic news.
Oh God! When the FDA finds out about this there will be HELL TO PAY!!
Thank you for posting this. My sister-in-law recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and doesn’t do well with chemo. This is hope :-)
Bump
Another thrilling discovery
AHCC Buy it at a health food store
Jun 14, 2012 ... Patients use AHCC to prevent and treat cancer. Animal studies suggest that
AHCC has antioxidant effects and may protect against disorders ...
So bittersweet, reading about this now, after the love of my life died from breast cancer this past January.
kind of curious that’s it ok to submit your 14 year old to an experimental drug, but when the parents of a 14 year in Minnesota decided to forgo failed chemo for a natural approach, the government sent the fbi, us marshals and Interpol after them.
Sorry for your loss.
This would not work yet for breast cancer. It may someday, but dealing with solid tumours with this approach is more difficult than blood cancers, but these problems can conceivably be overcome.
The initial experiments along those lines are being done in prostate cancer.
I’m sorry for your loss.
Think I saw this on a Star Trek episode with the Borg :-)
Good news! This therapy should be widely available in 3-5 years!
That is a sad reality I’ve wondered about.
Actually, cancer treatment and chances of surviving or living years after having it have increased hugely over the past few decades.
This is, though, based on some breakthrough of understanding or treatment, but just fine tuning and refining the original discoveries of chemotherapy, using poisons to kill the cancer cells.
It’s amazing how man people survive cancer now.
India. Coincidence or genetics?
A wonderful breakthru.
And absolutely hellishly scary all at the same time.
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