The Colon Club

zephyr wrote:

rp1954 wrote:I had the live tumor tissue tested with various chemo formulations by an outside lab.

I'm seeing my ND today and I'm going to ask her about finding a lab to do this kind of testing. It's something that somehow never occurred to me. Live and learn.

Do you mind sharing the name of lab you used? If not, no worries - but if you don't mind and if it's inappropriate to post here, please PM or email me.

Thanks.

I’ve never heard of an oncologist recommending this approach nor of a clinical trial showing the validity of it. Also, since so many agents work “in vitro” (in a test tube) in pre-clinical work, but then fail to be effective “in vivo” (in the body), there is little rationale for thinking that outside the body testing translates to IV chemo efficacy.

I know nothing about clinical trials but I found this one in Phase 3, concerning IV Vitamin C:

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02969681.

What do you think?

brokenwings wrote:I know nothing about clinical trials but I found this one in Phase 3, concerning IV Vitamin C:

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02969681.

What do you think?

My prior comment was specifically about lab testing chemo susceptibility of tumor samples.

I guess the phase 3 trial is a legitimate study to do (is need to look at the retrospective data and phase 1 study more though to confirm). However, you’ll note the phase 3 is not based on recent/strong phase 2 data. The study may find that vit C is either not beneficial, beneficial, or has no statistical impact. So until the study comes back, we just don’t know. I’d say comparatively it’s a bit different than say an immunotherapy that shows good ORR and safety in a small phase 2. In the immunotherapy example, we have at least some data that suggests it can be helpful, but it needs to be confirmed in a larger population during phase 3. In that case I could get excited about gaining access to an agent like that early and outside of a trial (CEA TMB bi specific comes to mind if it meets the phase 2 endpoint). But the vitamin C thing is based on a 40 year old retrospective study. Retrospective studies are frought with potential biases, and it’s 40 years old....

I knew 1 person that did the vitamin C thing only, they died feeling good, and that’s something.

Pyro70 wrote:

rp1954: I had the live tumor tissue tested with various chemo formulations by an outside lab.
zephyr:... I'm going to ask her about finding a lab to do this kind of testing. It's something that somehow never occurred to me. Live and learn.

I’ve never heard of an oncologist recommending this approach nor of a clinical trial showing the validity of it. Also, since so many agents work “in vitro” (in a test tube) in pre-clinical work, but then fail to be effective “in vivo” (in the body), there is little rationale for thinking that outside the body testing translates to IV chemo efficacy.

I moved this discussion to mbuser's Weisenthal Cancer Center thread to avoid hijacking Mike's thread more.

Pyro wrote:I knew 1 person that did the vitamin C thing only, they died feeling good, and that’s something.

That's pretty uncommon, that all of cancer's side effects are continually wiped out until near organ failure, or obstruction of circulation or breathing. A big vitamin C infusion in a cancer patient's latter days, often bedridden in pain, typically buys them so many hours, or a day or so, of normalcy, so they can have a good family meal and visit in a brief respite, or maybe a golf game the next day.

I doubt anyone here expects solo vitamin C to adequately treat CRC. In the 1970's, quality of life and minor survival improvements made vitamin C etc, perhaps a reasonable approach over harsher, unsuccessful treatments. Especially those mainstream tx that had negative OS results and horrific side effects. The Riordan Clinic, which seems to be the reigning public face of IV vitamin C for off label cancer treatment, doesn't advocate solo vitamin C for CRC either.

Chemo "ineffectiveness" has become somewhat of an obsession of mine these days. Why do recurrences happen after someone has done chemo? My husband responded well to Folfox last year as his first-line treatment with his metastatic tumor size reduced by 50%. Then, after the four rounds, he had liver surgery to remove said met. Clear margins. So why did another liver tumor appear? Did chemo fail him? If it was able to destroy .5 centimeters of a tumor, would it not have also cleared out all the micro-mets and CTCs? I asked his oncologist at Mass General when we discovered the recurrence, "How did this happen?" He did not have an answer and said that that is essentially the $64 million question in cancer science.

As we never, ever, ever want to go through this again, and the objective this time around is to achieve 100% kill, I am trying to ensure that my husband gets the absolute best chance at being cured. This includes preventing any cancer cells from going through and staying in the EMT, i.e. entering dormancy aka evading chemo. I have a few tricks up my sleeve for this. I will provide an update when the results are in.

Scientists around the world haven’t figured it out, we hope you do. My 77 round of chemo (chemo for life) will thank you, I don’t want to ever do it again either. Are you a research scientist?

mpbser wrote:Chemo "ineffectiveness" has become somewhat of an obsession of mine these days... I am trying to ensure that my husband gets the absolute best chance at being cured. This includes preventing any cancer cells from going through and staying in the EMT, i.e. entering dormancy aka evading chemo. I have a few tricks up my sleeve for this. I will provide an update when the results are in.

Me too. Maybe we should start a new thread... Stage IV research: best chance at being cured...?

zephyr wrote:

mpbser wrote:Chemo "ineffectiveness" has become somewhat of an obsession of mine these days... I am trying to ensure that my husband gets the absolute best chance at being cured. This includes preventing any cancer cells from going through and staying in the EMT, i.e. entering dormancy aka evading chemo. I have a few tricks up my sleeve for this. I will provide an update when the results are in.

Me too. Maybe we should start a new thread... Stage IV research: best chance at being cured...?

Yes! Starting it now!

One more comment, then I have to get on the road. This article may be of particular interest re: chemo resistance and overcoming it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4926427/ I found it yesterday when reading up on berberine.

Pyro70 wrote:

brokenwings wrote:I know nothing about clinical trials but I found this one in Phase 3, concerning IV Vitamin C:

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02969681.

What do you think?

My prior comment was specifically about lab testing chemo susceptibility of tumor samples.

I guess the phase 3 trial is a legitimate study to do (is need to look at the retrospective data and phase 1 study more though to confirm). However, you’ll note the phase 3 is not based on recent/strong phase 2 data. The study may find that vit C is either not beneficial, beneficial, or has no statistical impact. So until the study comes back, we just don’t know. I’d say comparatively it’s a bit different than say an immunotherapy that shows good ORR and safety in a small phase 2. In the immunotherapy example, we have at least some data that suggests it can be helpful, but it needs to be confirmed in a larger population during phase 3. In that case I could get excited about gaining access to an agent like that early and outside of a trial (CEA TMB bi specific comes to mind if it meets the phase 2 endpoint). But the vitamin C thing is based on a 40 year old retrospective study. Retrospective studies are frought with potential biases, and it’s 40 years old....

Thanks for the explanation, it's very useful.

Is it funny to anyone else we are fighting to stay on chemo?