World Cancer Day

World Cancer Day has arrived and Williams Cancer Institute would like to thank each and every patient who has entrusted their health with our clinic and treatments. Williams Cancer Institute aims to help create a cancer-free world. Our team has been passionately working on developing continuous medical research to eradicate cancer. We value the courage and strength every cancer patient has, and we honor your resilience.

support cancer

We know the immune system plays a key role in fighting off pathogens from entering the body. But it also fights the battles occurring within. It’s perhaps your biggest ally in helping your body fight disease. And understanding how your immune system joins forces with cancer treatment can give you a positive advantage.

Understanding the Role of Cancer Immunotherapy in Mexico
Your immune system targets disease and infection. It detects and destroys anything it sees as a threat. Some of these pathogens may include:

Bacteria
Viruses
Parasites
And

Unhealthy cells, including cancer cells!

Immunotherapy cancer treatment

A cancer diagnosis is a very scary reality. Cancer continues to be a serious illness, but there is hope for patients for better treatment options today that were not available a decade ago. This article addresses common questions and concerns regarding cancer treatment, including difficult to treat tumors.

How Does Cancer Treatment Work at the Cellular Level
Immune checkpoint inhibitors offer a new alternative to cancer treatment. Oncologists use the treatment method to stimulate the body to attack foreign cancer cells while protecting normal, healthy cells.

It all occurs at the cellular level of the body. Checkpoints on certain cells are either activated or deactivated to stimulate an immune response against cancer cells. However, cancer cells can use these same checkpoints to avoid an attack from the immune system.

questions about cancer (1)

If you have recently been diagnosed with cancer you likely have several questions. Common concerns are often regarding pain, hair loss, and treatment options. In this article we address answers to some common questions patients have after a diagnosis of cancer.

Can cancer treatments cause pain?
If you were diagnosed with cancer, you might understandably fear that you will be in pain. However, a diagnosis of cancer does not necessarily mean you need to live with pain. There are several treatment options that providers can now use to reduce or eliminate pain.

Both medication and non-medication options may be offered. The most crucial piece of information for treating pain comes from you, the patient. Be honest about any pain you are experiencing with your oncologist to develop a plan.

Cancer in itself may cause pain, but treatments necessary to treat cancer can contribute to increased pain.

According to the American Cancer Society, those with advanced cancer may experience more pain.

Treatment Options (1)

Dr. Jason R. Williams of The Williams Cancer Institute was recently featured on the podcast “Targeted Talks”, along with medical oncologist Dr. George R. Simon, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The two discussed the importance community oncologists have on the future of treatment of non-small cell lung cancer.

According to Dr. Williams, “every treatment option for non-small cell lung cancer now involves individualized immunotherapy.” Though oncologists had been resistant to including it in the plan of care for their patients, most have adapted as studies have revealed success, and more drugs are FDA approved.

Patients are asked as soon as they receive pathology reports whether they would like to start immunotherapy. There are limitations to success, as more data continues to be gathered on the subject. One promising option is the addition of cryoablation immunotherapy.

Advantages of Immunotherapy

Intratumoral immunotherapy is a revolutionary cancer treatment that makes use of sophisticated antibodies, which are directly injected into the cancer tumors, instead of intravenously.

This new cancer treatment immunotherapy can dramatically improve a cancer patient’s response rate, along with many other advantages.

Tumor against itself
The word itself, intratumoral, means within a tumor. Experts think that the best way to cure cancer is to use what’s already in the patient’s body, which means using cancer against itself.

A cancer patient’s immune system may target cancer cells and kill them before they overrun the body. However, the immune system sometimes needs a little nudge and this is where intratumoral immunotherapy could help.

According to experts, intratumoral immunotherapy optimizes cancer cells to work like a vaccine. It also inhibits the growth of the tumor as the tumor cells are injected with antibodies.

This process allows the patient to have cancer treatments with few side effects, unlike other methods. This also cuts the cost of expensive cancer treatments, while giving patients higher chances of survival and longer life.

Dr Jason Williams

Dr. Jason R. Williams of the Williams Cancer Institute announced a revolutionary approach to intra-tumoral immunologic tumor elimination of advanced cancers, unveiled at the 34th annual conference of the Society For Immunotherapy Of Cancer. The conference seeks to provide improved cancer patient outcomes by advancing the science, development and application of cancer immunology and immunotherapy across the medical field. Dr. Williams’s announcement is a major milestone for the Williams Cancer Institute on its mission to further advance research in intratumoral immunotherapy and help cancer patients.

The recently unveiled revolutionary approach allows for a greater combination of immunotherapy by directly injecting into the tumor, and has shown astounding results in a trial involving a stage-4 breast cancer patient with liver and a single brain metastasis.

gut microbiome (1)

New research from the University of Virginia Cancer Center and recently published in the journal Cancer Research suggests that an unhealthy gut microbiome could result in the spread of breast cancer throughout the body.

The research was spearheaded by Melanie Rutkowski, PhD, of UVA’s Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Cancer Biology. Dr. Rutkowski used mice to show how an unhealthy gut caused breast cancer to become much more aggressive, leading it to disseminate to other parts of the body.

pancreatic cancer

Combination of radiation, chemo, and blood-pressure drug losartan extends patient survival.

Locally advanced pancreatic cancer (LAPC) a tumor that, while still confined to the pancreas, involves major abdominal blood vessels is one of the worst forms of an already deadly tumor, as it cannot be removed surgically. Now a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center clinical trial of a treatment protocol combining intensive chemotherapy and radiation with the blood-pressure drug losartan has produced unprecedented results, allowing complete removal of the tumor in 61 percent of participants and significantly improving survival rates.

Around 40 percent of pancreatic cancer patients have either locally advanced or borderline resectable disease, with historically poor rates of successful surgery, said Janet Murphy, an instructor in medicine in the hematology/oncology division of Mass. General’s Department of Medicine, co-lead and corresponding author of the report in JAMA Oncology. To be able to successfully remove the primary tumor in 61 percent of patients sets a new benchmark and offers much hope. To our knowledge, this is the first LAPC clinical trial that defined surgical success as its primary outcome.