Dendritic cell vaccine therapy

Back from Germany after my latest treatment. Dr Nesselhut believes that the DC therapy is responsible for holding my metastases stable and is very pleased with this level of success. Regarding possible residual benefits from the chemotherapy (terminated last August) he argues that these would have lasted maybe a few months only. Now he wants to increase the effectiveness of my DC treatment, in order to achieve shrinkage, by adding hyperthermia. This will start on my next session in April.

Geoff

Alison, Stacie and Peter,

Many thanks for your good wishes. Certainly my immune sytem does seem very strong at the moment, I didn’t even catch the influenza which has been hitting a lot of people here in UK, even after my wife had it.

Peter, you raise a very good point regarding weight. I went from my usual 82kg (before I was diagnosed with cancer) down to 67kg (after surgery) then I was putting weight back on and went to 74kg before switching diet. Now I’m around 70kg ie about 12kg (equals 26lbs) below my pre-cancer weight. Although I eat quite well I just cannot seem to put weight back on – let’s face it this type of diet is ideal for slimmers ! I do eat lots of fish for protein (and for Omega-3) but I’m still very skinny. Thinking of taking some nutritional advice about this but I wouldn’t want to compromise the anti-cancer benefits of my regime. In what way did you modify your diet ?

By the way I’m not on a macrobiotic diet as such. I’ve developed a diet which I find appetising. I eat no meat, no dairy products, no sugar, and no added salt. I eat brown rice, wholegrain pasta, wholemeal bread, vegetables, oily fish and fruit for desert and snacks (of course the fruit has sugar but I can’t do anything about that). I do enjoy meso soup with seaweed and shitake mushrooms etc. All strictly organic. The diet is socially very restrictive – we can’t eat in restaurants and when I’m in Duderstadt we have to buy organic produce from the local health shop and give this to the hotel kitchen to cook for me (they’ve got used to this quirky english guy !).

Geoff

Just to let you know that I had my latest scan results this week and my secondary tumours are still stable. Shrinkage would have been great but stable is fine.

My UK oncologist doesn’t know why they are stable, he says that occasionally he does see this but (he cautions) eventually growth would be expected to re-start. He’s seen unexplained stability lasting for years.

He accepts that my immunotherapy treatment in Germany may be responsible but says (quite rightly) that it’s not proven. He does not attach much credibility to my diet and supplement regime (which I commenced last August after my chemotherapy was terminated).

I shall be discussing the scan results with Dr Nesselhut in Duderstadt next week. I imagine that I will continue with the immunotherapy. Something is responsible for holding my tumours stable and it may well be the immunotherapy. The only way I could be sure would be to stop the immunotherapy and see what happens but I don’t have the courage to conduct such an experiment on myself.

In the meantime everyone who sees me nowadays says how well I’m looking – I’ve completely lost that pale cancer look. And it’s really great not having to face the side effects of chemotherapy.

Geoff

peter,

At the hotel in Germany we met some other patients from the US who were telling us that they had recieved some initial treatment in Germany and then had been able to recieve the remainder of thier treatment in New York, I believe that Dr Nesslehut visits New York regulary and works closely with a colleague there – I think his name is Dr Chang.

We have been told that it will take about 4 treatments with DC cells before we will see whether my Dad’s cancer has responded to the vaccines, so we cannot attribute the stability of his disease to the vaccine. As my Dad has said on this board, this treatment is at the research stage.

Jules

Geoff,

Glad to hear from you, and hearing that you are doing so very well. Unfortunately, my husband’s recurrence is not giving him the opportunity to undergo dendtritic cell therapy at this time, but it is our goal to do so in the earliest possible future. He had a Klatskin tumor resection in June of 2006.

Wonderful to hear from you and the choice you have made.

Marion

Geoff,
it is wonderful to hear about your tumors being stable. I am so excited that you have taken the initiative with dendritic cell therapy since I believe it to be an invaluable tool in the fight against cancer. The best of luck. Looking forward to hearing from you.
MarionS