Immunotherapy, Vaccines...and Clinical Trials

Digging in Deep today, so hold on to your ride... we've got a lot to cover.

I think we can all agree that Pancreatic Cancer is one of the most deadly of all cancers.  We've talked pancreatic cancer statistics before... and they are just plan terrifying. 

It's imperative to find new therapies and treatments that will extend and save the lives of those impacted by this disease. 

It is the heartbeat of this daughter.  I would give anything to have my mom back, whole and healed.

The missing is a pain I live with everyday.  And I lay that hurt firmly at the door of pancreatic cancer. 

There is a cure.  We must find it.  My prayer is that those reading this blog will be on the healing end of that journey...  whether it's a traditional treatment or an alternative therapy, or a combination of both... healed and whole is the goal...

Which brings us to the finding of that cure.  I wish it was as easy as pulling a rabbit out of the hat.  But, unfortunately, the wheels of medicine and science turn much slower than that.

Enter the Clinical Trial.   It is the way new treatments run the gauntlet.  Either they make it thru or they fizzle in the trying. 

And this is the infuriating part.  The ones that show promise, a.k.a. the treatments that seem to be working in the fight, well, we still have to wait for the FDA to approve their use.  It's a waiting that sometimes takes months, if not years for promising therapies to get approved...

Pancreatic Cancer Patients do not have months to wait for promising treatments. Period.

They are needed now.

And so, it is a difficult thing for me to include these next treatments here.  For you to read about.  When they are not widely available for treatment.

Seems more than cruel.  But it is also the spring of Hope that Help is on the Way...

There are two treatments to discuss today.  They waffle between traditional and alternative.  In one sense they are traditional, dealing with medical and biological science.  On the other hand they don't fall easily into either the chemotherapy or radiation camp of conventional cancer treatment.  So, we'll discuss them based on merit alone, irregardless of what camp they fall into...

Back to the two treatments...two treatments that seem to go hand in hand.  Treatments that are right now in promising clinical trials, one that has even made the fast-track breakthrough designation thru FDA...

Stick with me when the definitions and medical jargon make your eyes glaze over.  There's a point where it all comes together... Promise.

So the two treatments... Immunotherapy and Vaccines

Immunotherapy is the treatment to stimulate or restore the ability of the immune (or defense) system in our bodies to fight disease.

Vaccines are products that stimulate a person's immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease and protect that person from said disease.

See where they're going here?  Immunity against Pancreatic Cancer.

To be immune to pancreatic cancer means that you can be exposed to it, in other words, your wayward pancreas can go all postal and try to grow cancer, but still you will not get pancreatic cancer.

Got your attention?  Yes?!  Sounds unbelievably good.  (Skepticism kicking in, but hang with me...)

One new treatment uses a "powerful new technology in genetic engineering that turns our own immune cells into 'specially trained assassins' capable of finding, attaching, and eliminating pancreatic cancer tumors."  Source:  Cancer Research Institute 

And then it goes and gets so very complicated in terms of medical lingo... So, my simple version is this...

The doctors have found a way to turn our T-cells on and give them orders to find and kill the pancreatic cancer cells.  I know, I know... sounds like a Sci-Fi thriller.  But it has shown promising results with leukemia patients and now the immunotherapy clinical trial is working on pancreatic cancer.

(p.s... T-Cells are types of white blood cells that are at the core of our immune responses. They're the good guys!)

Another new treatment in clinical trials right now is called The CRS-207 and GVAX trial.

Right?  It's all alphabet soup, but what does it mean... that's what I really want to know!

So, again, simple, simple...

The alphabet code names stand for two difference anti-cancer vaccines, CRS-207 and GVAX.  When given in sequence the combination essentially trains the body to recognize and attack pancreatic tumors.  The GVAX vaccine, developed by Dr. Elizabeth Jaffee, was designed to "reprogram" tumors to include immune system T-cells (the good guys) which are then able to fight the cancer from within.

Working in the same vein, researchers from the John Hopkins University School of Medicine have found that a combination of the GVAX vaccine and a low-dose chemotherapy may have made the pancreatic cancer more susceptible to the effects of immunotherapy.  This is a rather important finding because pancreatic cancer tumors are considered by many in the medical field to be nonimmunogenic...in other words not very receptive to the immunotherapy idea.  For a more in-depth study of this therapy, you can read the article in its entirety here.

Are you eyes glazing over yet?

Well, to make a long story even longer, the CRS-207/GVAX trial has actually received a breaththrough therapy designation from the FDA for its potential as a treatment for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.  The FDA made this designation based on the very promising results from a phase II clinical study.  In this study patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer lived an average 46% longer than those not given the trial vaccine/immunotherapy...

Does that mean we've found the cure??? Stop the presses and all that?!

I'm not jumping on that bandwagon yet... This treatment is still in its infancy.   But, oh, the possibilities.

Can you feel the Hope?

And yet, much of what I have shared today can only be found in the Clinical Trials.

So...the question begs... When are Clinical Trials Recommended?  I mean, let's say you have been given the horrifying diagnosis of pancreatic cancer... when do you stay the line with traditional treatments?  When do you take the leap and commit to a clinical trial?

The Cancer Research  Institute addresses this very issue for pancreatic cancer patients:

"Because of the poor prognosis and the lack of effective treatment options, for pancreatic cancer a clinical trial is nearly always preferred over existing treatment options for everything except localized tumors that can be removed surgically.  Specifically, pancreatic cancer patients are encouraged to participate in clinical trials:

* As adjuvant treatment after surgery for local disease
* When pancreatic cancer returns after surgery
* For unresectable disease (inoperable), when patient is in good condition
* After first-line treatment for locally advanced cancer of metastatic, if the patient has good performance status"

The Cancer Research Institute offers a Clinical Trial Finder that helps patients find current clinical trials of immunotherapies for pancreatic cancer that are currently enrolling patients.

Praying that you are not overwhelmed by so much information on the newer immunotherapies and cancer vaccines.  It is a lot to swallow isn't it?!

This is where information overload can de-rail a person fast.

My enouragement to you right now?  Take a Grace Break or two... decisions are made best after Peace has descended to calm your heart and spirit...

Lifting you up in Grace this day, Always,
                                                         Jane

Same Team! Same Team!

There's a story about a dedicated, but harried T-Ball coach...

If you've ever been to a T-ball game you know the score, especially for the first few games of the year.  The tiny players have no clue.  When a batter hits the ball, he might run to third instead of first.  Or a lucky player may catch a ball, but then in the excitement of the catch, forget to throw it to first.

In this particular play, the coach watched with disbelief as a ball was hit and rolled past every player out to the fence. Several players began running after it, and in the process reached the ball at the same time and began fighting over it.  At his wit's end, the coach hollered from the side line, "Same team! Same team!"   The players spun and looked at him.  Then one gave up the struggle while the other threw the ball into second base.

That one-liner speaks volumes.  Not just for T-ball players, but for everyone playing in the game of life.

Same team!  Same team!

If one cancer patient decides on traditional medical treatment and another decides on alternative care, the bottom line is that we're all on the Same Team.

Striving to find wholeness and healing.

Judgemental opinions, devisive posturing, and critical ranting do nothing but hurt the cause.  We are, after all, on the Same Team...

Mom chose to walk the traditional treatment road using Gemzar as her mainstay treatment, but there are other chemos being used in this fight as well as surgeries and radiation therapies.  And then there are others that may choose a more holistic approach, alternative and natural.  We will talk more about these therapies too in the coming days.

I believe we can all learn from each other's experiences...it is the heart of this website... to share, to listen, to be encouraged, to hope, to learn... some where out there lies the cure for this abominable cancer.  What if the cure is found in alternative therapies?  What if the answer is in a yet to be tried chemotherapy?  Hanging on to the Hope that someone reading these words will be part of that Victory.  It matters little to me whether it be a pharmaceutical chemo drug or an all natural herbal remedy.  I will be shouting it from the rooftops!

Several years ago Elizabeth Edwards struggled and lost her fight with breast cancer.  In an early interview, she wisely noted that, "The strength to fight the cancer is inside each of us... each one chooses the course that is best for them."

Each cancer journey is truly unique, the nightmare part withstanding.  To those struggling with what's right, what course of treatment, or which direction to turn, remember that we are all pulling for your healing.  Find the course, the path that is right for you.  And never, never, let the critical opinions of others sway you.

May you always find strength in the fact that you are part of a much larger team.  A team that is fighting hard for a cure.   We are all on the Same Team!   One day soon, it will be the Winning Team!

Journeying on in Grace, Always,
                                          Jane

Traditional vs. Alternative

Ok... I'm going to go out on a limb here...

Well, not that limb... the kind of proverbial limb that might leave me hanging without a leg to stand on...

But... (I'm going there anyway...)

Is it just me, or is there a real disconnect between Traditional and Alternative Medicine?  Like I mean, really a big disconnect, huge divide, talking Grand Canyon here...

We found it to be true when Mom first starting discussing treatment options with her oncologist.

He was a board-certified oncologist... in people speak that means he was a cancer doctor with lots and lots of schooling under his belt in traditional cancer medicine.

Traditional Cancer Treatment usually involves one of three things:

Surgery, Radiation or Chemotherapy

Some like to call it the Slash, Burn and Poison options.  Those would be (you guessed it) the ones strongly opposed to Traditional Treatments.

Alternative Cancer Treatment can involve a huge number of options.  From detoxification to oxygen therapy; a strict whole food diet and nutrition program to immunotherapy and a multitude of natural supplements and herbal remedies.

Of course, most oncologists look at the alternative, holistic treatments with like-minded scorn and consider many of the alternative practitioners to be nothing more than snake oil salesmen.

So where do we stand?  Are we in the Traditional Camp?  Or are we standing with the Alternative Camp?

And why, oh why, do we have to choose?

You may have guessed that I have many mixed emotions about this topic.  Mom chose a traditional course of treatment, for the most part.  But the holistic approach has much merit and we chose to use some of their wisdom during the journey as well.

Pancreatic Cancer is such a difficult cancer to battle.  It doesn't help that so little funding has gone into researching a cure... which is probably the reason that Mom was given a standard course of treatment for her cancer... the gold standard, according to her doctor... the same treatment that had been used in treating pancreatic cancer for the past 20 years.  Nothing newer, or better, had come along in all that time.  And it wasn't even considered an effective treatment... it was just basically the only one her doctor could offer.

Gold Standard.  Not even close.

And if your pancreatic cancer is inoperable.  And if your doctor gives you a 3 to 6 month time line.  And if the Gold Standard of traditional treatment will only prolong that timeline a few months.  And if you will feel miserable with side effects most of that time... yes, my heart grieves, those are the questions that beg an answer.

In yesterday's post we followed young David on his journey to face the giant Goliath.  He was pulled from all sides as he rose to the challenge.

* His brothers held him back and furiously questioned his reasoning.

* The soldiers recklessly tempted him with the lure of the King's bounty for the one who slays this Giant.

* Even the King tried to persuade the young boy-king to wear a coat of heavy armor that only served to bind his natural giftedness.

Perhaps you feel a little like David as you face the decisions before you.  Your healthcare team might be recommending one thing, a friend may be encouraging you to try the all natural sure-fire cure he read about, your family might be questioning your choices... and you don't know which way to turn.

And yet, only you can make the decision for the type of treatment that best suits you... welcome the input from loved ones, from friends and your doctors.  Learn all you can, for knowledge is power.   And as you listen and research and come to terms with what you value most, you will find that the decisions slowly begin to take care of themselves.

As David journeyed on from his victory over Goliath, the Lord granted him a strong support team in the loyal friendship and service of his legendary band of Mighty Men. (II Samuel 23)  These men were mighty in Valor, mighty in Faith, and anointed with the power of God. Their acts of heroism are recorded for our example. They were not afraid to risk and to sacrifice. They offered their lives on the altar of the king.  What a support team for the fight...

May you be Graced with your very own band of Mighty Men and Women to support you in this fight... Asking for wisdom and peace and hope anew as we Journey this cancer road.

In Grace Always, Jane