Cancer Treatment Today » Allergy and Immunology

Interferon for pancreatic cancer – pro

M Levin, MD — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 19:36:18 +0000

Interferon is known to have anti-prliferative effects against pancreatic cancer cells, especially in the IRF-2 pathway. Unfortunately, clinical support has been delayed.

Most available studies had been in adjuvant settings where the drug’s anti-angiogenic properties may be most prominent. A few metastatic studies do not demonstrate a marked benefit of adding interferon to chemotherapy.

NeoPlas Innovation’s Stephen Cantrell, M.D., has opened a clinic where he uses lovastatin with interferon for a variety of cancer diagnosis. We await peer-reviewed publications on the results of this approach.

Vitale G, van Eijck CH, van Koetsveld Ing PM, Erdmann JI, Speel EJ, van der Wansem Ing K, Mooij DM, Colao A, Lombardi G, Croze E, Lamberts SW, Hofland LJ. Type I interferons in the treatment of pancreatic cancer: mechanisms of action and role of related receptors. Ann Surg. 2007 Aug;246(2):259-68.

Tan, Marcus C. B. MBBS (Hons); Linehan, David C. MD Adjuvant Interferon-Based Chemoradiation Followed by Gemcitabine for Resected Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Annals of Surgery: May 2009 – Volume 249 – Issue 5 – pp 865-866

Jia Li at al, Updates of Adjuvant Therapy in Pancreatic Cancer: Where Are We and Where Are We Going? JOP. J Pancreas (Online) 2010 Jul 5; 11(4):310-312.

KATRIN HOFFMANN, STEFAN MEHRLE, JAN SCHMIDT, MARKUS W. BÜCHLER and ANGELA MÄRTEN Interferon-alpha Restitutes the ChemosensitivityANTICANCER RESEARCH 28 : 1499-1508 (2008)

Read the Layperson version here.

ALCAT Testing – pro

M Levin, MD — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:31:13 +0000

The antigen leukocyte cellular antibody test (ALCAT) is a proprietary test created and promoted by American Medical Testing Laboratories and Cell Science Systems, of Deerfield Beach, Florida. They market the procedure as an in-vitro screening test for adverse reactions to specific foods, food additives, food colourings and other chemicals. The test has been reformulates several times. IT is generally considered to be an unproven test(1). “These results have been shown to not be reproducible, give different results when duplicate samples are analysed blindly, don’t correlate with those from conventional testing, and ‘diagnose’ food hypersensitivity in subjects with conditions where food allergy is not considered to play a pathogenic role.”(3) A recent supportive study can certainly be characterized in this way(2).

1.Gerez IF, Shek LP, Chng HH, Lee BW (2010 Jan). “Diagnostic tests for food allergy”. Singapore Med J 51 (1): 4–9

2.Mohammed Akmal, Saeed Ahmed Khan, Abdul Qayyum Khan (April 2009). “The effect of the ALCAT test diet therapy for food sensitivity in patient’s with obesity”. The Middle Eastern Journal of Family Medicine 7 (3).

3.Mullins Raymond J (on behalf of the Education Committee) (November 2007). ASCIA position statement: unorthodox techniques for the diagnosis and treatment of allergy, asthma and immune disorders. Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy.

Read the Layperson version here.