Chennai, 04 May 2011; A 54 year old patient with Ovarian Cancer has been successfully treated with AIET (Autologous Immune Enhancement Therapy; www.immunotreatment.org) by Nichi-In Centre for Regenerative Medicine (NCRM), Chennai. NCRM, jointly with their collaborating institutes, using proven Japanese technologies has achieved this feat. In the treated patient, the cancer which had spread to liver and spleen has stopped growing further and other metastases have shrunk. The patient now goes about doing her routines as before, according to a paper on this clinical work presented in the Second International Immunotherapy Congress, held recently at Budapest, Hungary (www.canceritim.org)). The results were lauded by the international faculty.
Generally, advanced stage Ovarian cancer has a very poor prognosis. In the case presented at the international congress, the patient was operated for ovarian cancer and given chemotherapy in June 2009. The cancer recurred in July 2010 and spread to liver, spleen and lymph nodes (Stage IV) for which only limited treatment options were available. Along with chemotherapy the patient was given the AIET, which uses the patient’s own Natural Killer cells, the key immune cells that continuously do the surveillance for cancer cells and viruses and curtail any cancer in the bud. These NK cells are taken from the patient’s blood and multiplied in the laboratory manifolds and re-injected to destroy the cancer cells, which has been in clinical practice in Japan since 1990s and the technology for multiplication of NK cells using patient’s own serum was developed by Dr.Hiroshi Terunuma of Biotherapy Institute of Japan, Tokyo, a co-author of the work.
The patient showed significant improvement in her quality of life and the cancer markers which were above 230 (CEA-125) before the treatment, have come down to normal around 4 U/mL according to Dr. Ramanan, Oncologist, Chennai, who is following up the clinical status.
Cancer cells are formed everyday in our body, which are curtailed by the immune surveillance system and NK cells play a major role in controlling the cancer cells. When the balance between the cancer causing and the controlling mechanisms is lost, it becomes a full blown disease and the AIET employs the innate potentials of our immune system to fight cancer. In this patient, since her own immune cells are used, there is no rejection or adverse reactions. It is well proven in randomized clinical studies published in peer-reviewed journals. The safety and efficacy of the cell based immunotherapy, when combined with other conventional modalities of treatment is also well established.
“One of the major advantages with our methodology is that we do not use any allogenic or other types of feeder layer, but use only the patient’s own serum for growing the NK cells, which has added advantages of safety,” says Dr. Abraham, who presented the work in the meeting. He also added that early diagnosis and intervention were very important for better prognosis.