Breast cancer - the two words women fear the most. It threatens a woman’s self image, even if she survives the cancer. Statistically, one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer so every woman knows someone who has or has had this disease. Over 170,000 will be diagnosed per year and over 40,000 will die in the same year. She knows the impact of the disfiguring surgery to those who have survived and the severe side effects of chemotherapy and radiation. While not discounting the above, there are much better outcomes possible, especially if the disease has been diagnosed early.

Breast cancer has usually metastasized (spread) by the time it is detected. The cancer has typically been growing for 10+ years before it can be detected by exam or scan. The typical barely detectable lump usually contains nearly 50 billion cancer cells. Mammograms are controversial, some believe that the pressure employed is likely to rupture the tumor, particularly ductal cancer, and promote metastasis. Others fear the ionizing radiation (x-rays) will themselves induce cancer. Thermography does not carry this danger but thermograms are not yet as sensitive to small tumors. Translimanated infrared (diaphanography) is claimed to be as sensitive as mammograms, does not require pressure, and can be used even daily to follow tumor status since it does not use ionizing radiation. Although first developed in the US, it is only available in China, one hopes that this will soon change.

Breast cancers are classified by site of origin and cell type. Padget's Disease is a rare condition associated with ductal carcinoma and is discussed below. Most often breast cancer has only one location in a single breast, almost half of which originate in the upper and outer quadrant of the breast. Ductal carcinomas comprise over 90% of breast tumors and originate from the epithelium of the mammary ducts. The remaining are lobular carcinomas since they arise come from the mammary lobules (see figure).

Ductal carcinoma

Ductal carcinoma rarely remains in the ducts, but infiltrates into other breast tissues and lymph nodes, and is termed infiltrating ductal carcinoma. They are usually hard on palpation. Medullary carcinomas are a special class of ductal carcinoma, the cells are better differentiated and the tumor is often large and soft to palpation. Ironically, with this larger tumor, the prognosis is better than with invasive ductal carcinoma. Medullary carcinoma is less invasive. Colloidal intraductal tumors  (mucinous tumor) are large, gelatin like masses and usually develop in older women, they are slow growing and have a more favorable prognosis. Other intraductal carcinomas are papillary and comedo carcinoma.

Padget's Disease

Padget’s Disease refers to two distinct disease conditions ( of breast and of bone) which have nothing in common except being named for the physician who first described them, Sir James Padget (1814 - 1899).

Padget’s Disease of the breast is a rare condition almost always associated with underlying breast cancer, usually invasive or intraductal carcinoma. It is associated with a red, scaly lesion on the nipple and surrounding tissue, and there may or may not be a discharge from the nipple. Sometimes in early stages of the condition it may be misdiagnosed as eczyma, dermatitis or psoriasis, if signs of the underlying cancer are not readily apparent.

Padget’s Disease is characterized by inflammatory cells that are large and irregular, as first described by Padget. These Padget’s cells are not themselves cancerous and when found on other parts of the body are not associated with cancer.

The presence of Padget’s Disease with breast cancer does not materially affect the treatment or prognosis of the cancer. Indeed, its primary importance may be in those early stages of cancer to cause the physician to look for cancer when there are no readily observed symptoms (lump) to suggest breast cancer.

Lobular carcinoma

These carcinomas can be restricted to an initial site (in situ) or invasive. In situ lobular carcinoma has the danger of being initially diagnosed as hyperplasia associated with fibrocystic breast disease. The invasive form usually shows multiple sites in the breast. In most cases where both breasts are involved, it is usually lobular carcinoma.

Male Breast Cancer 

While considered rare, male breast cancer represents about 1% of breast cancers. The male breast has less tissue mass than the female, thus the tumor spreads rapidly and infiltrates the underlying muscle and overlying skin. Ulceration through the skin is common. Tumor spread through the surrounding tissue and lymph nodes is similar to that of the female. The treatment regimens, prognosis, etc. are the same for both sexes.

Treatments              

Conventional medicine classifies breast cancer by a staging system which is similar for different cancer types, but with specific differences. This follows the standard TNM sequence (tumor - nodes - metastasis); Conventional treatment is dependent on this staging.  Treatment recommended will usually be surgery, from a simple lumpectomy to full mastectomy, followed by chemotherapy and radiation.

Alternative or complementary medicine usually accepts surgery as a potentially curative procedure. IRF agrees, but we believe that the surgeon should spare as many lymph nodes as possible. These nodes have seen the tumor and have been battling it for up to a decade, they are the first line of immune defense and become a key factor in many alternative treatments which involve immune “boosting” in one form or another. Likewise chemotherapy and radiation (C&R) weaken or destroy the immune system. Studies have shown that chemotherapy and radiation can increase survival (primarily 5 year survival). There is debate as to which conditions following surgery would best benefit from C&R.

If surgery has removed the entire detectable tumor, then C&R is given as a prophylactic against tumor recurrence. We at IRF believe that this will only be useful if there is actually undetected residual tumor. It is irrational to believe that C&R can prevent cancer. IRF and others believe that immune therapy would be more effective than C&R following surgery, based on scientific reasoning, common sense and observation. IRF believes that C&R leaves the patient more vulnerable to long term recurrence and to metastasis because they also suppress the immune system..

If surgery has not removed the entire tumor, then C&R are rarely curative. We consider that under these circumstances C&R are only palliative, and the patient should be so informed. Leaving the patient to hope for a cure only leads to distrust of conventional treatments as a whole. When there is such residual tumor, the patient’s only real option is immune therapy augmented with some alternative treatments - in the opinion of IRF. In this case palliative C&R only has a short term positive effect with a long term negative potential of blocking immune therapy, the patients only real hope.

Immune Recovery Foundation considers itself to be a medical clinic that primarily stresses immune therapy and that this is actually a fourth modality of conventional cancer treatment. Immune therapy of cancer is not well understood in much of the medical community. This results in a failure to accept the treatments as conventional.  Thus, immune therapy is sometimes classified as alternative medicine, despite Nobel Laureates having contributed to much of the immune knowledge being employed. It is ironic but there is more knowledge of immune function outside conventional medical practice than within. It is the domain of the research scientist, a few medical practitioners and a large number of lay medical enthusiasts. Immune Recovery Foundation uses whatever treatments, alternative, conventional or natural which it feels will help the individual patient and their individual disease.

Immune Recovery Foundation’s approach is to integrate those therapies to accomplish a set of goals:

1.   To slow or halt the growth of the tumor.

2.   To determine and correct the damage sustained by the immune system.

3.   To determine and correct the causes of immune damage.

4.   To contra-suppress the tumor.

5.   To stimulate the immune system towards a major immune attack of the cancer.

6.   To put the cancer in remission, or barring that outcome, to gain and hold a quality of life for the patient.

 7.  To teach the patient a new way of living that will support better health through mental/emotional, life-style and dietary changes.

To accomplish these goals an individualized protocol is developed for each patient, utilizing some of the many possible treatment modalities available.

There are many so called alternative agents with a record of slowing cancer growth. While there are claims of cures with many of these agents; the data for cure is inconclusive.  However, the data on slowing cancer growth is definitive. There are also drugs purported to cure, as laetrile, ukraine, etc.  While again the data is usually inconclusive, there are so many of these claims that they should not be dismissed out of hand. Then there is a large group of agents, available as supplements, which are more useful to maintain health and prevent cancer that is prophylactic use. Their primary value is as part of a maintenance program following therapeutic treatment.

1. The newest and best hope for halting tumor growth is the process of antiangiogenesis {see link}. Blocking new blood vessel formation greatly limits the tumors ability to grow and metastasize. Antiangiogenesis is the new “buzz” word in the pharmaceutical industry, with several biotech type drugs in clinical trial. These new drugs are designed to inhibit the growth factors which promote blood vessel growth. They are obscenely expensive. Almost ignored are agents from conventional medicine, as thalidomide, cox-2 inhibitors, IFN-alpha and IL-12.  Completely ignored are over a dozen natural and alternative products which are active because they block blood vessel growth. The more interesting are curcumin, genestein, quercetin and silymarin. IRF utilizes these and others. The most promising new agent for antiangiogenesis is tetrathiomolybdate.

2. Damage to the immune system can only be determined by immune blood panels, some highly specialized. Agents which have utility in immune restoration are several homeopathics, intravenous ascorbic acid with vitamin-mineral formulations, selected alternative products and certain cytokines.

3.  Some causes of immune damage which renders the patient susceptible to cancer are chronic viral infections (Epstein-Barr, cytomegalovirus, and others), chronic yeast, parasitic infections and living a high stress lifestyle. One of the reasons chronic stressful living (high tension, anxiety, fear, worry) may lead to cancer is it causes our body to produce an overload of cortisol and cortisol suppresses the immune system. If we are chronically stressed, we are constantly suppressing our immune system. To these we must add heavy metal toxicity (arsenic, lead and, mercury) and the ever present pesticides and organic industrial pollutants. The processes of chelation and detoxification can reduce some of these factors. It is critical that these underlying problems be corrected to avoid a repeat of the conditions which allowed the original tumor to become established. We feel that it is a failure to address this problem that is a major cause of disease recurrence.

4. Contra-suppression of the cancer means the blocking of the tumors ability to suppress the immune system. Thus, actions which hinder immune attack on the tumor are reduced. Most tumors cause immune suppression by inducing the production of suppressor T-cells, blocking macrophage activity by producing prostaglandin, and other mechanisms. There are conventional medications which can induce this contra suppression.

5.  Immune stimulation can elicit an immune attack on the cancer similar to a tissue transplant rejection (tumor rejection) by increased production of natural killer cells and tumor specific T-cells. While there are many agents to accomplish this activity, we feel the best are certain cytokines (interleukins and interferon), cancer vaccines, and transfer factor.

[Note: true transfer factor is obtained from blood or spleen, so called colostrum derived transfer factor has never been shown to have such activity. Marketers of this type product claim the data from true transfer factor applies to their product with all evidence exactly opposite.]

6.  Most patients come to IRC following a failed conventional program, or have suffered a relapse of the disease. Immune therapy is successful in early disease but also offers the possibility of reversing or halting later stage disease. Late stage patients are physically unable to respond adequately to some therapies, and the cancer may be too established and widespread for elimination. Where tumors can be slowed through antiangiogenesis, there will be more time for the therapeutic treatments to be effective. IRF always has the goal of tumor reduction and remission, however, in some cases this is impossible and we can only hope for an extension of quality of life.