An alternate and safer treatment that has the potential to save thousands of life
Three years ago, Asha Gupta (name changed) and her family were devastated when she was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. Today she is in remission. An alternate treatment, Immunotherapy, helped her fight and survive Invasive Ductal Carcinoma.
Immunotherapy, also called biologic therapy, is a type of cancer treatment that works by boosting the body's immune system to destroy the cancerous cells.
Delhi's Cancer Healing Centre, were Gupta's received her treatment, has treated over 4,000 cancer patients through Immunotherapy over the last 19 years at its centres in Mumbai, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Jaipur. It's an option oncologists around the world are increasingly showing interest in.
Gupta's treating doctors, Dr Deepika and Dr Tarang Krishna say a considerable number of their patients find their way to the centre in the last stages of cancer.
There are several types of immunotherapy; at the Cancer Healing Centre, they practice with herbal medicines. "These medicines target the cancer cells and work by first developing a shield around the cancerous tumor to arrest further spreading. The immune system is then strengthened to recognize and attack the cancer cells systematically," explains Dr Tarang, an MD in Homeopath with Ph.D. in Oncology from the United Kingdom.
Dr Deepika, also a homeopath, says they have seen results in, "cases of leukemia, brain tumour, and even ovarian cancer. The success rate in case of Gaestro intestinal cancer, considered the most complicated cancer, has been 60 to 80 per cent."
The duration of the treatment depends on the condition of the patient and could take anywhere between is to nine months. Cost also varies case to case and is Rs18000 a month and upwards.
The therapy does not harm or kill the healthy body cells, thus no side effects either. There is no loss of weight, appetite or hair in patients," says Dr Tarang, who also received the Rajiv Gandhi Excellence Award for 'Innovative Therapy in Cancer Healing' in 2012.
Though immunotherapy came to India in 1996, it has finally picked up pace in the last 10 years. Mainstream medicine is also showing interest in the treatment. Dr Shripad Banavali, Head, Paediatric Oncology, Tata Memorial Hospital for Cancer, Mumbai, says, "Immunotherapy could work in conjunction with other therapies to treat cancer. We kill cancer cells directly through chemotherapy. But in Immunotherapy, we change and modulate the environment in which cancer grows, by decreasing the tumor load, and gradually let body's immunity take over. Two or three private laboratories in India are practicing it. However, in India, there is lack of standardised data of big randomized trials on its efficacy. There is data from the West, but India needs to conduct more research."
Immunotherapy vs Chemotherapy
Immunotherapy is often seen as an alternative to chemotherapy, which involves external chemicals to kill cancerous cells. It is often used in conjunction with radiation therapy, surgery, etc. However, in the process healthy cells in the bone marrow, digestive tract, and hair follicles are also killed. All chemotherapeutic agents cause a depression of the immune system paralyzing the bone marrow leading to a marked decrease in the White Blood Cells, Red Blood Cells, and platelet count. Patients experience nausea and vomiting, and gastrointestinal distress that cause malnutrition and dehydration.
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