Anti-angiogenesis Cancer Cure Strategies Catching on Slowly in the U.S
Since the mid-1980s, two “new” cancer fighting strategies have been much discussed, yet rarely utilized in the United States, anti-cancer vaccines and a class of drugs known as anti-angiogenesis or angiotensive drugs. I first became aware of this problem, when, as a medical transcriptionist, I was devastated when one of my favorite doctors was diagnosed with a rare type of spinal cancer in the late 1980s. A loyal member of the AMA, he utilized only AMA approved protocols, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy in a vain fight against the disease. I was told that he had been planning to fly to Germany to try some of the treatments that had already been approved there when he died.
A few years later my now ex-wife and I did transcription through a contractor for a cutting edge cancer treatment center in California. While we were doing transcription for them I learned of two then “experimental” protocols, that were being tried at that center but that had not yet received FDA approvals. The first was the production of anti-cancer vaccines, which used the specific DNA of the patient’s cancer to produce a vaccine that would allow the body’s immune system to recognize the cancer as an invader and attack it directly. After amazing success stories at the center, I heard very little about it’s subsequent use.
The other was a class of drugs, variously referred to as anti-angiogenesis or angiotensive drugs (one of which is actually available over the counter) that stop the growth of tumors, giving the body’s defenses time to recognize the tumor as a foreign body and not another body tissue. The science behind these drugs is relatively simple. In order to grow a tumor needs to grow new blood vessels within itself in order to nourish the new tumor areas. These drugs stop that process from occurring anywhere in the body. That also gives the body time to recognize the tumor as a foreign body and turn the immune system on the cancer. One of those drugs is an over-the-counter anti-allergy spray called Nasalcrom, which although it has not been approved for that particular use, has an apparently strong anti-angiogenesis property. When I inquired as to why the FDA did not inform doctors that the use of this drug could aid in the fight against cancer, I was told that it was because there was a “better” drug in the pipeline. I guessed that that other drug would probably be significantly more expensive than Nasalcrom and certainly it seemed unconscionable to keep people in the dark about a potential cancer fighting strategy in the meantime.
A few years later the new drug was in fact approved although I have heard very little about its usage and although I am no longer in the medical field it seems that whenever I hear about family members or friends who are being treated for cancer I never hear of proposed treatments beyond the big three, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.
