The Food and Drug Administration agency has given its go to the testing phase of a promising new cancer treatment that was discovered at the Wake Forrest University Medical Center in North Carolina. About 20 people diagnosed with cancer will be included in the study that will hopefully confirm the cure.
About 5 years ago, scientists at the University found that one of the rodents they were experimenting on didn’t get cancer in spite of the doctors repetitive attempts at making it ill by injecting big quantities of cancer cells into its system. Further studies on this mouse made doctors understand that it was the animal’s extraordinary immune system that was responsible for everything.
More precisely, the mouse’s granulocytes, a special type of white blood cells that are known to attack cancer cells, were keeping it healthy no matter what the doctors did. This prompted the doctors to use granulocytes from it and its offspring to cure other mice. According to The Independent, Dr Zheng Cui, the leader of the research, has declared that “In mice, we’ve been able to eradicate even highly aggressive forms of malignancy with extremely large tumors. Hopefully, we will see the same results in humans. Our laboratory studies indicate that this cancer-fighting ability is even stronger in healthy humans.”
There have been cases in the past when treatments that went extremely good on animals failed to have the same results on humans, or had side effects that made them unsuitable for being used as a treatment, but hopes are high when it comes to Dr Cui’s treatment.
The main thing that might hold back people from registering as volunteers for the tests that will be carried out might be the cost of the treatment. At this moment, this goes as high as $100,000 but in some states insurance companies might pay for it.
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RESOURCE/SOURCE: http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Promising_Cancer_Treatment_Enters_Testing_Phase_19667.html on Sunday June 29, 2008.
