Another view of the Issels paper.
Hi Peter,
It was amusing to read this ancient gem of German medical wisdom and to
brush up my knowledge of the German language. The paper dates from 1959
!!!and is a bit long to translate but here is what I found to be important:
It starts with reflections on what is cancer, citing studies from 1930ies
,1940ies, 1950ies, and concluding that cancer is a failure of the immune
system (what is partially close to the truth) Thus the immunotherapy has to
restore the immune system and also bring the body in balance again. The
principle of that therapy is the introduction in the body of anti-tumor
antibodies (either in an active or a passive way) Passive is the
administration of a cancer ant-serum (e.g. Sarvinal = ??? WB : never heard
of that one, must be one those patent German wonder medicines that have
disappeared since) For active immunization there are several methods:
Inta-cutane implantation of a tumor fragment from the patients own tumor But
take care! In some experiments with lyophilised own tumor injections,
sometimes the cancer started to grow faster if the dose was too high (Kaliis
and NewTon 1949) Even experiments with irradiation in the 30ies are
explained as immunotherapy. The future is injection with bacterial products
to stimulate the immune reponse. (comment WB: this reminds me of experiments
in the 50s scratching large parts of the body and rubbing tuberculine in it,
some quacks still do
this)
Then follow some reflections on the role of cortisone and other hormones.
(WB : this was written long before we differentiated hormone dependant
tumors)
Follows a praise of the Coley-Toxine -Therapy (injection with a brew of
streptococci and something that sounds like a chicken soup recipe :-) And
then the Issels therapy: Some products are prepared in the Dutch institute
for tropical medicine in Leiden (serum enzymes and plasmines) 1. a series of
injection with a mix of bacteria, some of them are extracted from tumors
2.biological food, care for the soul, positive thinking 3. blood
transfusions and blood washing according the Wehrli method
(=???)
and now the results:
They retrospectively selected cases from the files of the Korthof Dutch
university clinic in Leiden (all before 1954)
Total of 252 selected out of 1800, see table 1
It is a mix of many different malignancies, but all of them had some form of
metastasis or recidive and they compared them with the results of similar
cases of the Schwager and Rossolec clinics that were treated with the
"immunological" Issel therapy., 242 in total To compare uterine tumors the
took the data from the work of Dalicho They looked at the 5 year survival of
that group and found it to be 16.6%, or 42 out of 242 that was better than
the "normal" therapy. My comment: To compare the figures from a mix of
totally different cancers and different hospitals is not very convincing,
but it is an interesting view like a time capsule, on how research was done
50 years ago. The intentions were good, the confounding factors and bias
were not so well known then. To use this study today to promote a cancer
therapy is plainly hilarious.
Also on that web site: they were praised by a visiting English professor who
cautiously proposed to do a controlled study. I did not find the date when
this was proposed or if the study was ever done. The most recent study they
cite dates from 1970, and smells also fishy because they compare their
successes with world averages , whatever that means. No mention of
inclusion -exclusion criteria, intention to treat or whatever. If it looks
like a quack, sounds like one.....