214 replies to this topic

[mag1]

Keep those compliments rolling in, they feel great!

FDA granted 3-BP Orphan Designation (though not FDA Orphan Approved) in:

Liver and intrahepatic bile duct cancer (03-05-2013) and

Pancreatic cancer (30-04-2014).


[I am not clear about the meaning of the terminology involved. How can the drug have Orphan Designation Status though not be approved?]


FDA granted authorization to immediately begin a phase 1 trial with a commercial formulation of 3-BP on January 11,2013.

[resveratrol_guy]

Sorry I'm pressed for time again, but I don't want to risk losing this data dump from Dayspring Cancer Clinic, the 3BP folks. Here's how it goes:

1. A phone consult (onsite preferred) is available for $350.

2. The 3BP IVs are not deliverable alone. They come as part of a comprehensive therapy package for $28,000/month. However, I was told that 3BP is available for "cheap" from various Chinese labs. That might make sense for the nonrich, provided that one could send a sample to a lab for verification via mass spectrometer, HPLC, etc. (Sounds like a group buy...)

3. The State of Arizona licensed their doctor to deliver 3BP in about 12/2014, so obviously they don't have much in the way of statistics yet. Presumably, other doctors throughout the USA will be licensed soon, but I have no further data.

4. Patients are advised to take antiparasitic medication prior to initiating 3BP therapy, because the parasites can eat the 3BP. This makes no sense to me, because the parasites are in the gut if they're anywhere, and the 3BP is intravenous. So yeah, some of their techniques seem goofy, but OTOH if they want to spin around clapping their hands for good luck while delivering 3BP to save lives, that's fine with me.

5. Other aspects of the therapy include: Gerson(ish) therapy, nanosilver, IV vitamin C, chelation therapy (heavy metals removal), and other stuff I'd never heard of. It occurs 9-5, 5 days/week, under doctor supervision.

6. The administrative assistant was very knowledgeable, but unaware of minicells, or 3BP adjuncts such as paracetamol and salinomycin. I have no reason to believe they would oppose these, however.

7. In the interest of clinical analysis, they do a PET scan the first week, then a second one later depending on disease evolution. This could provide high quality scientific evidence of efficacy.
 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 05 February 2015 - 05:18 PM.

[mag1]

That is another strange part about the German patient report. Why were they simply destroying more of the bulk tumor mass even when his liver appeared to be overloaded? The scans taken after the ninth 3-BP treatment (in comparison to before the start of treatment) Figure 4 on page 5 of http://download.spri...4b6442&ext=.pdfshow a build up of ascites labelled 1 on the figure.

Would it not have made much more sense to simply have treated with salinomycin at this point. Continuing to destroy tumor cells that are mostly not stem cells proved to be very dangerous and ultimately fatal for the patient. After the huge success of 3-BP treatment, targeting the remaining stem cells with salinomycin would have stopped a rebound in tumor growth while the patient's body regenerated his liver and cleared the huge quantity of destroyed cancer cells.

[mag1]

Sorry, the above link did not work.

The German report is open access. Go to below url. Don't pay for it!

http://link.springer...0863-012-9425-4

Scroll down to the Volume 44,Issue 1, pp 1-6 hyperlink and click

Scroll down to the article called " A translational study "case report" on the small molecule ...." and click

[mag1]

Wonder about the PET scans.

LDH was the primary biomarker used in the patient with metastatic melanoma treated with 3-BP. LDH would likely give you a very good numerical read out on the quantity of metabolically active cancer in a patient. Sure, a PET scan would also be great to give you the precise locations of tumor masses. However, in terms of day to day patient management LDH might be more useful. If a Tumor Lysis problem arose a frequently measured LDH test would pick it up first.

Oh, and LDH tests cost $4.15.

Did you drop the $350 on a phone consult? Wow, taking one for the team.

[pone11]

Sorry I'm pressed for time again, but I don't want to risk losing this data dump from Dayspring Cancer Clinic, the 3BP folks. Here's how it goes:

1. A phone consult (onsite preferred) is available for $350.

2. The 3BP IVs are not deliverable alone. They come as part of a comprehensive therapy package for $28,000/month. However, I was told that 3BP is available for "cheap" from various Chinese labs. That might make sense for the nonrich, provided that one could send a sample to a lab for verification via mass spectrometer, HPLC, etc. (Sounds like a group buy...)

3. The State of Arizona licensed their doctor to deliver 3BP in about 12/2014, so obviously they don't have much in the way of statistics yet. Presumably, other doctors throughout the USA will be licensed soon, but I have no further data.

4. Patients are advised to take antiparasitic medication prior to initiating 3BP therapy, because the parasites can eat the 3BP. This makes no sense to me, because the parasites are in the gut if they're anywhere, and the 3BP is intravenous. So yeah, some of their techniques seem goofy, but OTOH if they want to spin around clapping their hands for good luck while delivering 3BP to save lives, that's fine with me.

5. Other aspects of the therapy include: Gerson(ish) therapy, nanosilver, IV vitamin C, chelation therapy (heavy metals removal), and other stuff I'd never heard of. It occurs 9-5, 5 days/week, under doctor supervision.

6. The administrative assistant was very knowledgeable, but unaware of minicells, or 3BP adjuncts such as paracetamol and salinomycin. I have no reason to believe they would oppose these, however.

7. In the interest of clinical analysis, they do a PET scan the first week, then a second one later depending on disease evolution. This could provide high quality scientific evidence of efficacy.
 

 

Personally, I find it extremely offensive that a cancer clinic wants $28K/month to administer 3BP.

 

I also feel that these kinds of commercially driven organizations that prey on the hopes of desperate patients are not to be trusted, and specifically I don't trust their ad hoc n=1 reports about "cures".   It would raise the credibility of this thread on Longecity if people would call out such results as from a commercial organization and not treat it - in ANY way - as equivalent in value to peer-reviewed scientific research.

 

It would have value if - over time - people announced other clinics that have a more humanitarian approach to patients that are starting to deliver 3BP therapy.

 

[pone11]

Sorry, the above link did not work.

The German report is open access. Go to below url. Don't pay for it!

http://link.springer...0863-012-9425-4

Scroll down to the Volume 44,Issue 1, pp 1-6 hyperlink and click

Scroll down to the article called " A translational study "case report" on the small molecule ...." and click

 

Here is the full text of the study you are referencing in your post as a URL:

http://link.springer...0863-012-9425-4

 

It was confusing to follow your instructions.  In the study you did link - which is not the one you want us to look at - the mention of the German cancer patient is at the end and is very brief.   

 

Here is the study you wanted to link in full text:

http://link.springer...0863-012-9417-4

 

I see your point in Figure 4, but this thread would benefit from someone introducing correct information about tumor lysis.   For example, maybe lysis occurs weeks or months after the cancer is killed, so managing therapy versus lysis levels might actually be an extremely tough thing to do?  You think you are killing cancer without lysis, and then the lysis levels creep up on you post-therapy and end up killing the patient before there is time to act.

 

What is perplexing to me is how can they publish a study like the German Liver Cancer case report in 2012, and here three years later they don't have a published study on someone with an early stage cancer of the same result.  To me, THAT is what is criminal, not that they did not account for lysis correctly.   How can these people be staring at such dramatic clinical results and not be testing every early stage patient they can get their hands on?

Edited by pone11, 05 February 2015 - 11:30 PM.

[mag1]

The profit margin on 3-BP treatment will be extraordinary. Chinese suppliers offer 25 kilogram drums of it with up to 98% purity for a very reasonable price. However, given that many of the people who would be especially interested in the treatment likely have serious illness the prices being quoted for treatment in a regulated medical setting do not seem that outrageous. Many cancer drugs that the FDA approves cost considerably more money than 3-BP treatment would and often these approved treatments have surprisingly small effectiveness.

3-BP treatment has yet to fully conquer the aura of invincibility that cancer has acquired throughout human history. Many would find it a reasonable trade-off to pay the quoted fee in return for being treated in a setting where high standards of professional conduct would be strictly enforced by the American legal system.

Of course, the great irony is that the only patient reports that we have been endlessly discussing here are from non-American non-commercial groups who have published n=1 studies in peer reviewed scientific journals which quite possibly have been positively selected based on response. It is a very large concern that there are people who have been treated with 3-BP who have not benefitted from 3-BP and, thus, their clinical reports were not deemed worthy of publication. If clinics could simply give us sequential patient reports of those treated with 3-BP, it would give us a better idea of the effectiveness of 3-BP.

Americans let their freedoms be taken away from them by the centralization of the medical regulatory system. How surprising, central planning failed terminally ill cancer patients! Wouldn't of guessed that could happen in a million years. What could possibly go wrong in having one centralized decision making process to authorize innovative medical choices? The 3-BP researchers had obviously given up on America ever being a clinical leader with 3-BP (probably after considerable efforts trying to convince politicians and regulators).
It took ten years for 3-BP to make it to the clinic (though in a different country). Right to Try Laws will finally stop the unconstitutional denial of patient's rights.

After developing a potentially massive breakthrough product (3-BP), we now must extend heartfelt gratitude to Germany for having a regulatory system that allowed a hospital ethics board to authorize 3-BP treatment to a boy with end-stage terminal metastatic illness.
It is all the more surprising as the only published research to that point was in animals. Choosing to treat with such minimal information took courage and moral wisdom. German law allows doctors to exercise their best professional judgment in the treatment of their patients. It is deeply regrettable that America allowed the fate of terminally ill patients to be decided by a highly politicized democratic process. In the published patient report from Germany, the patient did benefit from their regulatory environment. If 3-BP results in a Nobel prize, then the Germans should earn some recognition for their contribution. For several years, the German report was the only published example of a human treated with 3-BP. Some acknowledgement of the failure of centrally planned medical regulation seems appropriate.

Sorry for the confusion with the url. I tried to grab the url for the article though the publisher seemed to be blocking it.
The article is open access, though on the publisher site they want people to make a payment to read the article. They made it a little confusing, though if you follow the links I suggested then you will eventually get to the free article.

[resveratrol_guy]

Catching up...

 

"Ketogenic diet should be an additive therapy here, as would be any other pro-oxidative therapy."

By "pro-oxidative", I assume you mean "pro-OXPHOS" because a ketogenic diet would result in reduced ROS per unit of energy released. Ozone and hyperbaric oxygen do do seem like useful anticancer therapies, but I would not engage in them prophylactically, as the cell membrane damage can't be a good thing in the long term.

"The below url provides a good introduction to minicells. On page 5 of the article, (Figure 1A) notice that 520 nanograms of monastrol 4 times per week loaded onto minicells cured the mice of cancer! NANOGRAMS!"

I find this hard to believe, but certainly it deserves an attempt at reproduction of results. Just the same, I do think minicells are a reasonable adjunct to 3BP. In cancer treatment, if you want to follow the "kill 'em all" approach (which I have certain statistical doubts about), then the only way to win is in fact to kill every malignant cell. Killing 99.999% of them with 3BP is awesome, but insufficient. If minicell usage tips the balance to 100%, then we win. So I think patients should at least be given an informed choice when there is an appropriate way to exploit a minicell strategy. Or, for that matter, a set of heteromorphic minicells all delivered simultaneously, aimed at different vulnerabilities.

"Possibly the molecule needs to be as simple as 3-BP to work and perhaps this means that there is a problem making the drug different enough from 3-BP to file a valid patent."

BINGO! ...and we wonder why there has been so little research

"There is no compelling argument to be made that experiments must rigidly continue with an hypothesis that has been shown to be invalid."

Well said. This is the essence of the dirty data revolution, which is for better or worse turning ye olde scientific method from a process of discrete steps into a smeared out continuum of evolving understanding linked to constantly adaptive experimentation. This isn't a new idea; it's a precursor to the Kurzweil singularity, at which point experiment and technological evolution are so tightly linked in time that only the machines understand the significance of either.

"3-BP is a strong candidate for preventative cancer management."

I wouldn't use it as a prophylactic. We can't afford to have cancer somehow learn how to avoid it. I'd prefer proOXPHOS (e.g. c60oo) as opposed to an antiglycolytic.

"full text for the rat brain cancer study"

Nice one, thanks!

"Tumor Lysis Syndrome is a completely preventable and treatable medical condition."

Agreed. For one thing, conventional hemodialysis could probably avert this entirely. For large tumors, it could be started preemptively once 3BP has had a chance to exit the blood stream and settle into tumor cells. Not to mention, let's try to use 3BP way before we're dealing with stage 4 (e.g. visit a banana republic in stage 1).

"[3BP might] act as a diagnostic tool for the presence of cancer by virtue of the presence of lysis byproducts appearing after the infusion"

Pure genius! It would be beyond a cancer scanner; it's a how-close-are-you-to-cancer scanner. And yet, so comparatively low-tech.

"Oh, and LDH tests cost $4.15."

I agree with cheap and accurate, if we're talking about assessing disease progress with respect to a specific type of tumor. I was just saying that PET is a good catch-all way to survey disease status with respect to glycopathology, in order to "prove" 3BP across many different cancers.

"Did you drop the $350 on a phone consult?"

No. But the administrative assistant was quite helpful and forthcoming.

"Personally, I find it extremely offensive that a cancer clinic wants $28K/month to administer 3BP."

Well, it certainly isn't practical for most of us. OTOH I do think they can provide good data, even if indirectly so. It's amazing what certain software architectures are able to do by way of separating hype from fact, using methods not unlike the Bayesian methods developed for spam filtering, especially if we could review the results of many different clinics. (For instance, IBM Watson seems to employ tools like this.) And it's not like they have zero social liability for publishing any random BS.

Bottom line, I cannot emphasize this enough:

1. Cancer is a computer, all of whose processors must be shut down before any one of them learns to circumvent all of the applied therapies.

2. The probability of any given cancer cell (or cancer stem cell) surviving the attack decays exponentially with the (linear) number of applied therapies, assuming that they are orthogonal (target independent vulnerabilities). The precise decay exponent varies with the particular therapy. Another way to think of this is that the size of the surviving population is  the product of individual survival factors, each of which associated with one of the orthogonal therapies.

3. Whereas nonmetastatic tumors (which we sort of don't care about in this context) grow at a rate approximating (radius^2 per unit time) -- a single ball growing one surface layer at a time, essentially; metastatic ones grow exponentially because the circulatory system affords them effectively unlimited surface area (radius^(N-1)/time in an N-dimensional space, if you like). Thus we have a positive exponent which must be overcome by the negative exponent in #2 on a sufficiently protracted basis in order to reduce the viable malignant cell population to nil before the patient dies.

4. It is often easy to accomplish an NED (no evidence of disease) state, but this is far from a cure due to cancer stem cells, and even just tiny numbers of "normal" cancer cells that survived the attack. So what we need is an absolutely overwhelming assault from day one, then very sensitive blood tests (e.g. Miroculus or the lysis scanner just invented above) to verify total annihilation. But this is hard to prove. So we have to hope that the resurgent cancer, were it to return, would remain susceptible to 3BP. It might well be, because glycolysis is so fundamental to aggressive cancer, but this is the gamble. The alternative, apart from applying conventional therapies or doing nothing, is glycolytic welfare (as opposed to warfare): Logically, there should be a therapeutic benefit to providing the products of glycolysis, via minicell, in a "tumor welfare" system, which equilibrium principles would suggest should thwart actual glycolysis, just as people on barely-sufficient welfare tend to avoid work. But I'm lacking for published studies here, and maybe this strategy is best reserved for recalcitrant end-stage tumors.
 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 06 February 2015 - 02:37 AM.

[mag1]

Tumor Lysis Syndrome is a preventable and treatable problem resulting from the sudden destruction of a massive amount of tumor.
In the German report, the patient went into a coma after the second treatment with 3-BP, due to Tumor Lysis Syndrome, and was not expected to live. Yet, the patient made a spontaneous recovery.

The episode that proved fatal was a result of the liver not being able to handle all of the destroyed tumor cells. The article described this as liver overload. It is not entirely clear if this is exactly the same thing as Tumor Lysis Syndrome. Tumor Lysis Syndrome is preventable and treatable. It is possible that the liver failure was not a treatable problem. However, the liver failure was a result of the same process: an unmanageable amount of destroyed tumor cells. The patient seemed to be contented in the picture in the article at the time of his birthday. It is regrettable that the focus continued with the tumor and not recovery of the liver. Salinomycin would have blocked and cancer regrowth. This would have avoided destroying the tumor bulk composed of non cancer stem cells that have not shown to be essential for tumor development.

A more successful treatment outcome might have resulted if destroying more tumor cells had not been pursued so relentlessly. After a year of intensive 3-BP treatment it is not hard to imagine that the patient's liver was under extreme stress. The article notes, however, that the liver was in fact continuing to regenerate even near the end. 3-BP resulted in a positive result for the patient, one which likely would have been even more successful if a cancer regrowth blocking strategy (for example, with salinomycin) had been adopted
once the stress on the liver had been noticed (for example in figure 4 after the 9th treatment).

[niner]

I see your point in Figure 4, but this thread would benefit from someone introducing correct information about tumor lysis.   For example, maybe lysis occurs weeks or months after the cancer is killed, so managing therapy versus lysis levels might actually be an extremely tough thing to do?  You think you are killing cancer without lysis, and then the lysis levels creep up on you post-therapy and end up killing the patient before there is time to act.

 

What is perplexing to me is how can they publish a study like the German Liver Cancer case report in 2012, and here three years later they don't have a published study on someone with an early stage cancer of the same result.  To me, THAT is what is criminal, not that they did not account for lysis correctly.   How can these people be staring at such dramatic clinical results and not be testing every early stage patient they can get their hands on?

 

From the case report paper, it sounds like lysis happens pretty rapidly, and falls off pretty rapidly as well.  It looked like it more or less spiked after each dose of 3BP.  Yet, it remained a problem throughout treatment, while if things were working as you'd think, the tumor load would have kept falling and TLS would cease to be a problem.  Maybe what was happening was that there was a lot of dead tumor tissue that was continuing to degrade.  It sounds like his liver was too damaged to recover, or to recover in time. 

 

Speaking of criminal, why did it take the ethics committee a month to ok 3BP treatment?   Maybe if he'd had it earlier, instead of toxic crap like cisplatin...

 

I too am appalled at the $28K/mo number.   I hope extensive lab work and imaging can at least partially justify that, but I kinda doubt it.   I also find it distasteful that they repeatedly mentioned their "patented and proprietary" formulation of 3BP, turning a badly written case report into an advertisement.  I recall once hearing someone claim that if it wasn't for everyone trying to get rich, we would have cured cancer a long time ago.  Might be something to that...

[mag1]

I am pushing hard to get a new topic tag added to this thread: "The Cure for Cancer?"

Too many of the cancer threads on this forum are on topics that do not offer hope to end stage patients. Eating your vegetables will not
cure severe end stage cancer.( A point largely accepted by the alternative medicine community.)

I want the topic tag "The cure for Cancer?" to offer examples of cancer patients who have had overwhelmingly severe illness and responded to an innovative treatment as published in a scientific journal (perhaps this topic tag could be moderated to ensure it complies to this intent). 3-BP is one treatment which would have earned this distinction, there are also a few others (e.g. CAR T cells).

So we're throwing down the gauntlet. Any published cancer result that qualifies can get in the ring!

(If someone knows how to contact a moderator to change the topic tag, then it would be very much appreciated if this were done.)

[pone11]

The profit margin on 3-BP treatment will be extraordinary. Chinese suppliers offer 25 kilogram drums of it with up to 98% purity for a very reasonable price. However, given that many of the people who would be especially interested in the treatment likely have serious illness the prices being quoted for treatment in a regulated medical setting do not seem that outrageous. Many cancer drugs that the FDA approves cost considerably more money than 3-BP treatment would and often these approved treatments have surprisingly small effectiveness.

3-BP treatment has yet to fully conquer the aura of invincibility that cancer has acquired throughout human history. Many would find it a reasonable trade-off to pay the quoted fee in return for being treated in a setting where high standards of professional conduct would be strictly enforced by the American legal system.

Of course, the great irony is that the only patient reports that we have been endlessly discussing here are from non-American non-commercial groups who have published n=1 studies in peer reviewed scientific journals which quite possibly have been positively selected based on response. It is a very large concern that there are people who have been treated with 3-BP who have not benefitted from 3-BP and, thus, their clinical reports were not deemed worthy of publication. If clinics could simply give us sequential patient reports of those treated with 3-BP, it would give us a better idea of the effectiveness of 3-BP.
 

 

Most insurance companies won't cover the costs of an unregulated and unproven therapy.  So quite likely a lot of that $28K is out of pocket.   The substances being used by Dayspring are not expensive.  That $28K is almost pure profit to the cancer clinic for services rendered.

 

There is a world of difference between cancer researchers who do an n=1 trial and publish the results in a peer reviewed journal and "Dayspring Cancer Clinic".   It's frustrating to me that some of your posts make the two cases sound equivalent in quality.  A commercial entity with no research ties can hide bad data, distort good data, and simply present bad data in an incorrect way in order to market their for-profit service.   You will lower the quality of this thread by using those kinds of organizations as data points for reporting results.

 

I agree with you the FDA has destroyed freedom significantly.  They have also destroyed our economy, making it possible for drug companies to charge any price they like for therapies that get through the regulatory process.

[pone11]

 

"[3BP might] act as a diagnostic tool for the presence of cancer by virtue of the presence of lysis byproducts appearing after the infusion"

Pure genius! It would be beyond a cancer scanner; it's a how-close-are-you-to-cancer scanner. And yet, so comparatively low-tech.
 

 

Low tech, low cost, fairly low risk, and actually therapeutic if you have very early stage cancer.  

 

It would also widen the experience of oncologists with 3BP, and that directly feeds into willingness to use it for later stage cancers.

Edited by pone11, 06 February 2015 - 03:55 AM.

[pone11]

I too am appalled at the $28K/mo number.   I hope extensive lab work and imaging can at least partially justify that, but I kinda doubt it.   I also find it distasteful that they repeatedly mentioned their "patented and proprietary" formulation of 3BP, turning a badly written case report into an advertisement.  I recall once hearing someone claim that if it wasn't for everyone trying to get rich, we would have cured cancer a long time ago.  Might be something to that...

 

 

I want to put nuance on this.   The reason that some cancer therapies cost $30K/month (or more) is that we have a dysfunctional medical delivery system:

 

1) We socialize the delivery of health care through Medicare, but we do nothing to control cost.  You cannot socialize delivery without price controls otherwise you are enabling monopolistic pricing, which is what we have in the US today.  I'm not advocating any specific type of system.  I'm simply saying you cannot write blank checks without suppliers abusing you and jacking up prices.  This is a point about economics and not a point about social preference or politics.

 

2) The FDA prevents competitive products from getting into the marketplace, which limits price competition and further empowers monopoly pricing.

 

The "drugs" being used by "Dayspring" are not expensive.   They are mostly commodities like Vitamin C.  3BP is also cheap.  They are simply taking the price of $28K based on what proprietary drugs cost, and passing all of that back to themselves as pure profit for services.   I find that obscene and abusive, and it tells me they care about money more than saving human lives.

[pone11]

I am pushing hard to get a new topic tag added to this thread: "The Cure for Cancer?"

Too many of the cancer threads on this forum are on topics that do not offer hope to end stage patients. Eating your vegetables will not
cure severe end stage cancer.( A point largely accepted by the alternative medicine community.)

I want the topic tag "The cure for Cancer?" to offer examples of cancer patients who have had overwhelmingly severe illness and responded to an innovative treatment as published in a scientific journal (perhaps this topic tag could be moderated to ensure it complies to this intent). 3-BP is one treatment which would have earned this distinction, there are also a few others (e.g. CAR T cells).

So we're throwing down the gauntlet. Any published cancer result that qualifies can get in the ring!

(If someone knows how to contact a moderator to change the topic tag, then it would be very much appreciated if this were done.)

 

People don't search based on complicated tags.  "The Cure for Cancer" in a tag won't increase traffic.   Cancer is the right tag.

 

I don't think we want people throwing non-3BP related topics into this thread.   Why would you do that?  You will have every quack cure that isn't even scientific get thrown in by some person acting on a hidden commercial interest.  You have a powerful and specific solution in 3BP.  Don't hide it.  The complexity of this conversation shows that 3BP alone is a complicated topic and there will be a lot of new research and subtopics to explore in the next few years.

 

To the admins:  is there any feature on the site that would let us cross link this topic into other forums?  I think it could be topical to several discussions, and I think the thread is important and deserves visibility across the site to a wider audience.

 

What I might recommend:   go sign up on other cancer blogs, and point them to this thread.   But I would caution you before doing that not to do it in unscientific forums.  The beauty of Longecity is that it seems to attract engineers, scientists, and lay people with a respect for science.   I for one am extremely tired of participating in other forums that are health related.  Most people can't read or understand science and the discussions become emotional and factually not very valuable.

[mag1]

I would cut the commercial cancer clinics some slack. There is still considerable uncertainty about how to safely provide 3-BP treatment.

The 2 published reports on cancer patients who received 3-BP noted extreme anti-cancer responses, though both patients ultimately

succumbed, not to cancer, but to what might most accurately be described as iatrogenic causes. Knowing how to manage potentially

fatal complications (such as Tumor Lysis Syndrome) and establishing the correct dosing schedule of 3-BP are complex issues that are best

managed by highly qualified doctors.

 

In fairness, the criticism of the treatment received by the patient in the German report might be entirely misplaced. It is quite possible

that no treatment regimen would have resulted in a better outcome than that was achieved. (This is difficult to fully assess).

However, these are exactly the sort of criticisms that doctors are routinely exposed to and might be expected to receive until 3-BP

therapy has been fully tested in a range of clinical populations.

 

 

If I were to now be suffering from a similar extreme end-stage cancer, I would be very grateful if a cancer clinic took $20,000 from me, treated me in

their official medical clinic, and pulled me back from the other side. I could always try and save a few bucks and round up some kids who passed high

school chemistry. They could mix up some 3-BP in my kitchen. That would be nuts! People go to medical school and they earn degrees in medicine.

They become doctors. It is too early to be grumbling about the cost of curing cancer. When all the problems noted on this thread are worked through,

then we might reach the point where curing metastatic cancer will have to be postponed so that a patient can watch their favorite TV show or haggle

over the cost. We have not reached such a point yet. 

 

[mag1]

I was thinking that we could develop awareness of powerful cancer treatments through the topic tag.
The problem with the tag cancer is that it is so all encompassing that people throw it into the list even when the thread does not have
a clear relationship to cancer. For example, one of the most highly viewed threads with the topic tag cancer is actually about a cancer drug that might treat Alzheimer's. Many of the other highly viewed cancer threads also are not specifically focused on the treatment of severe cancer.

If we could grow traffic to topic tag "The Cure for Cancer?" it would highlight the success of 3-BP. Nothing would have to change on this thread.

The topic tag might encourage others to add the same topic tag to their thread and include other cancer treatments that have demonstrated similarly amazing results as 3-BP. There are a few other stunning cancer cures that are currently emerging. For example, CAR T cells have also cured patients with no other treatments choices of severe metastatic illness.

This thread seems to be the most relevant of all the cancer threads in offering cancer patients with severe illness a possible treatment. The forum does not make it easy for people to find threads such as this. This thread is still flying below the radar.
It would be great if the forum had more tools to locate successful threads such as this. For example, a method showing a graph of activity (views) in threads and allowing ranking of threads by such changes in views. Currently, the ranking system favors threads that have existed for many years, even when they do not offer innovative solutions.

[pone11]

If I were to now be suffering from a similar extreme end-stage cancer, I would be very grateful if a cancer clinic took $20,000 from me, treated me in

their official medical clinic, and pulled me back from the other side. I could always try and save a few bucks and round up some kids who passed high

school chemistry. They could mix up some 3-BP in my kitchen. That would be nuts! People go to medical school and they earn degrees in medicine.

They become doctors. It is too early to be grumbling about the cost of curing cancer. When all the problems noted on this thread are worked through,

then we might reach the point where curing metastatic cancer will have to be postponed so that a patient can watch their favorite TV show or haggle

over the cost. We have not reached such a point yet. 

 

I recently had a kidney doctor tell me that he gets paid by the insurance company only $200 to come into a hospital environment and provide a consultation on a kidney failure patient.  He is providing life-and-death advice to someone who is incredibly ill, and regardless of the time he puts in he makes $200.   He then made the point to me that the same service provided by a large hospital is being billed to insurance for $2000.   There are exceptions for some specialties, but largely bread and butter physicians are not the ones getting rich in the current environment.

 

So your first mistake is that you believe it is the doctors who are getting paid well when you give that $28K to the cancer clinic.   Probably they aren't.   It's mostly pure profit for the cancer clinic.

 

The two parties that are growing vastly wealthy, at the expense of US taxpayers are:

 

1) Pharmaceutical companies, that can charge monopoly prices while the government hands them blank checks.

 

2) Large hospitals, who have learned to game the system with medicare, and who have enormous negotiating power against insurance companies.  This is why the insurance companies are able to bully small physician practices, but bend over and overpay large hospitals.  A large metro-area hospital now pays $1M per year salaries to its key executives.  That says everything about how much profit those hospitals make.

 

In a competitive environment no one makes $28K/month per patient providing some IV infusions and then some monitoring and blood work post transfusion.   In a competitive environment, a commodity like 3BP should be infused at around $175/visit, and even that is pretty expensive.   The overcharges by the parties in 1) and 2) have so distorted every person's thinking about health care costs, that somehow a clinic is able to give you vitamin C transfusions and some 3BP and no one blinks at paying $28K/month for it.  As a taxpayer paying for the abuses, and as a human who might someday need to pay out of pocket for these services, I find it all pretty disgusting.

Edited by pone11, 06 February 2015 - 07:38 AM.

[niner]

I added the tag "cancer cure" to this thread.  It's better for tags to be short and simple; it's not likely that someone would think to search for a longer phrase, particularly with a question mark.   If there are other threads that should have such a tag, I'll add it if someone points me to the thread.

 

Question:  How is it that 3BP only takes out cancer cells?  If it's an alkylating agent, those are typically very indiscriminate.

[pone11]

I added the tag "cancer cure" to this thread.  It's better for tags to be short and simple; it's not likely that someone would think to search for a longer phrase, particularly with a question mark.   If there are other threads that should have such a tag, I'll add it if someone points me to the thread.

 

Question:  How is it that 3BP only takes out cancer cells?  If it's an alkylating agent, those are typically very indiscriminate.

 

3BP exploits the overexpression of the HK2 enzyme in nearly all cancers.   Glucose travels into the cancer cell because it has so many gateways on the cell surface, apparently activated by HK2.   3BP looks like a nutrient and somehow slides in through these gateways.

 

The beauty of this is that most "normal" cells don't have enough of these gateways to let in substantial amounts of 3BP into their cytoplasm.  You are right if the 3BP somehow got into normal cells it might kill them too.   But the mechanism exploited preferentially overdoses just the cancer cells with these HK2 activated gateways for glucose.

 

That's why it would be very hard for cancer to "evolve" past this drug.   Cancer would need to change its entire metabolic strategy.  At that point you wonder would it even be the same disease, and would it progress as rapidly?

 

See reference:

http://link.springer...0863-012-9425-4

[mag1]

It is important to remember that dosage matters tremendously with 3-BP.

In one experiment it was found that all animals died within minutes after being administered a larger dose of 3-BP than that needed to destroy their cancer. 3-BP shuts down cellular in normal cells when given at elevated doses.

3-BP is a very dangerous drug at the wrong dosages.
As has been mentioned on this thread even for people with large tumor burdens administered a small therapeutic dose, 3-BP can be a very dangerous drug.

[pone11]

It is important to remember that dosage matters tremendously with 3-BP.

In one experiment it was found that all animals died within minutes after being administered a larger dose of 3-BP than that needed to destroy their cancer. 3-BP shuts down cellular in normal cells when given at elevated doses.

3-BP is a very dangerous drug at the wrong dosages.
As has been mentioned on this thread even for people with large tumor burdens administered a small therapeutic dose, 3-BP can be a very dangerous drug.

 

Fantastic points.  Maybe you could post URLs to FULL TEXT for the 3BP overdose study?

 

By the way, learn to use Sci-Hub.  It's a Russian site that usually finds full text if you search on the full title of the study.  I would say it bats about 90%!

http://sci-hub.org/

[pone11]

I was thinking that we could develop awareness of powerful cancer treatments through the topic tag.
The problem with the tag cancer is that it is so all encompassing that people throw it into the list even when the thread does not have
a clear relationship to cancer. For example, one of the most highly viewed threads with the topic tag cancer is actually about a cancer drug that might treat Alzheimer's. Many of the other highly viewed cancer threads also are not specifically focused on the treatment of severe cancer.

If we could grow traffic to topic tag "The Cure for Cancer?" it would highlight the success of 3-BP. Nothing would have to change on this thread.

The topic tag might encourage others to add the same topic tag to their thread and include other cancer treatments that have demonstrated similarly amazing results as 3-BP. There are a few other stunning cancer cures that are currently emerging. For example, CAR T cells have also cured patients with no other treatments choices of severe metastatic illness.

This thread seems to be the most relevant of all the cancer threads in offering cancer patients with severe illness a possible treatment. The forum does not make it easy for people to find threads such as this. This thread is still flying below the radar.
It would be great if the forum had more tools to locate successful threads such as this. For example, a method showing a graph of activity (views) in threads and allowing ranking of threads by such changes in views. Currently, the ranking system favors threads that have existed for many years, even when they do not offer innovative solutions.

 

People don't browse tags.   So how will anyone find a tag named "Cure for Cancer"?

 

I supposed you could ask for a new topic on Cancer, but doesn't that lower your views instead of increasing them?  You are already the #1 thread in the Medicine & Diseases forum.   Your thread is marked "Hot".   I don't think you can get better than this?   If there were a Cancer forum, then people in Medicine would miss this important thread.

 

Keep in mind that Longecity is not a huge place.  It's mostly the hardcore scientific types.  I think that is a great level at which to have the discussion too.   But you won't get 500 people here.

 

Again, why not contact the admin and ask if there is a way to cross link the thread to other forums?  Maybe they will allow you to post invitations to this thread in other relevant (!) forums and then occasionally bump those invitations to keep them current.

[niner]

People don't browse tags.   So how will anyone find a tag named "Cure for Cancer"?

 

I supposed you could ask for a new topic on Cancer, but doesn't that lower your views instead of increasing them?  You are already the #1 thread in the Medicine & Diseases forum.   Your thread is marked "Hot".   I don't think you can get better than this?   If there were a Cancer forum, then people in Medicine would miss this important thread.

 

Keep in mind that Longecity is not a huge place.  It's mostly the hardcore scientific types.  I think that is a great level at which to have the discussion too.   But you won't get 500 people here.

 

Again, why not contact the admin and ask if there is a way to cross link the thread to other forums?  Maybe they will allow you to post invitations to this thread in other relevant (!) forums and then occasionally bump those invitations to keep them current.

 

People might browse tags if they were consistent, sensible, and finite in number.  The problem is that we let people create any random tag that they want, so tags are all over the map.  I think it would work a lot better if we had a consistent set of tags to choose from.  This would require someone to come up with a list, and we lack manpower.  We'd still need to let people add their own tags because the list probably wouldn't be all-inclusive.

 

There are a lot of guest logins, although many of them are search engine web crawlers.  We get a lot of traffic though.  

 

  Most people here read the forums using the "Recent Topics" button, which is the first item on the Search menu.  This shows all recent threads from whichever forums you are subscribed to, which defaults to all of them.  The use of Recent Topics with a well-tuned subscription list is the only way to go, IMHO.
 

[mag1]

This is from one of the 3-Bromopyruvate patents. Priority Date Dec18, 2006
http://www.google.co...2114413A1?cl=en

From Example 24 of the patent:

In rats,

"In order to determine the therapeutic dose of 3-bromopyruvate for intravenous (FV) administration, a dose-escalation study was conducted in normal Lewis rats (non-tumor bearing). Each group of animals (6 rats per group) received incremental doses of 3- bromopyruvate intravenously (2.5mL of 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 5OmM 3-bromopyruvate). The animals were observed for a period of 3 weeks and watched for any evidence of toxicity. The therapeutic dose was found to be 2OmM. At the highest dose of 5OmM, all the animals in the group died within 15 minutes. It was observed that all of the organs were found to be normal by histopathologic analysis and that there was no evidence of corrosive effects of 3-bromopyruvate even at that high dose. All doses lower than 20 mM were well- tolerated and caused no deaths."

In rabbits,

"...Although these doses (2.5 and 5 mM) were 0.5 and 1 log higher than the 0.5mM dose previously investigated, these doses were well within the IV therapeutic dose established in rats and rabbits. It was observed that the 5mM concentration of 3-bromopyruvate completely destroyed the tumor, but also caused widespread necrosis of the surrounding healthy liver resulting in the death of all the rabbits within the group. However, all of the other major organs were found to be completely uneffected on histopathological analysis at necropsy, indicating a predominantly loco-regional toxicity of 3-bromopyruvate when delivered intraarterially. The lower dose of 2.5mM also achieved complete tumor destruction, but the surrounding healthy liver still showed large areas of necrosis and fatty changes making the animals extremely sick and barely able to survive for more than 48 hours after treatment."

Possible implications in humans,

"...Since patients with HCC also suffer from underlying liver disease such as cirrhosis and hepatitis, an important translational consideration for therapy is the absolute necessity to protect and preserve healthy liver parenchyma. To lessen the degree of liver toxicity, different temporal modalities of intraarterial injection were tested. One possibility was that such a large volume, delivered within the short time of 2 minutes may have added physical and chemical toxic effects on the liver. Thus, a 1-hour continuous infusion and a serial infusion of 2 boluses administered an hour apart were compared against the original single bolus dose."

It is not clear whether these comments might have bearing on the German patient. Was an autopsy performed? Did they investigate possible liver toxicity of 3-BP? Perhaps the assessment of liver overload as being being responsible for the demise of the patient precludes the possibility of direct liver toxicity caused by 3-BP.

[mag1]

It is too bad that we can't do dual searches.

For example, the most viewed AND within the last year AND topic tag cancer.

This thread is hot (I want red hot), though so many of the cancer threads from years ago clog things up. This thread is listed on the second page for cancer topic tags by views, while none of the threads listed earlier have had any substantial recent activity (some in years).

[pone11]

This is from one of the 3-Bromopyruvate patents. Priority Date Dec18, 2006
http://www.google.co...2114413A1?cl=en

From Example 24 of the patent:

In rats,

"In order to determine the therapeutic dose of 3-bromopyruvate for intravenous (FV) administration, a dose-escalation study was conducted in normal Lewis rats (non-tumor bearing). Each group of animals (6 rats per group) received incremental doses of 3- bromopyruvate intravenously (2.5mL of 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 5OmM 3-bromopyruvate). The animals were observed for a period of 3 weeks and watched for any evidence of toxicity. The therapeutic dose was found to be 2OmM. At the highest dose of 5OmM, all the animals in the group died within 15 minutes. It was observed that all of the organs were found to be normal by histopathologic analysis and that there was no evidence of corrosive effects of 3-bromopyruvate even at that high dose. All doses lower than 20 mM were well- tolerated and caused no deaths."

In rabbits,

"...Although these doses (2.5 and 5 mM) were 0.5 and 1 log higher than the 0.5mM dose previously investigated, these doses were well within the IV therapeutic dose established in rats and rabbits. It was observed that the 5mM concentration of 3-bromopyruvate completely destroyed the tumor, but also caused widespread necrosis of the surrounding healthy liver resulting in the death of all the rabbits within the group. However, all of the other major organs were found to be completely uneffected on histopathological analysis at necropsy, indicating a predominantly loco-regional toxicity of 3-bromopyruvate when delivered intraarterially. The lower dose of 2.5mM also achieved complete tumor destruction, but the surrounding healthy liver still showed large areas of necrosis and fatty changes making the animals extremely sick and barely able to survive for more than 48 hours after treatment."

Possible implications in humans,

"...Since patients with HCC also suffer from underlying liver disease such as cirrhosis and hepatitis, an important translational consideration for therapy is the absolute necessity to protect and preserve healthy liver parenchyma. To lessen the degree of liver toxicity, different temporal modalities of intraarterial injection were tested. One possibility was that such a large volume, delivered within the short time of 2 minutes may have added physical and chemical toxic effects on the liver. Thus, a 1-hour continuous infusion and a serial infusion of 2 boluses administered an hour apart were compared against the original single bolus dose."

It is not clear whether these comments might have bearing on the German patient. Was an autopsy performed? Did they investigate possible liver toxicity of 3-BP? Perhaps the assessment of liver overload as being being responsible for the demise of the patient precludes the possibility of direct liver toxicity caused by 3-BP.

 

This sounds like exactly what happened to the German liver cancer patient.   That in turn suggests it was not lysis that got him.  It was direct action by 3BP to destroy normal liver cells that were adjacent to the cancerous cells.

 

The text above makes it sound like "normal" cells that are adjacent to a cancer cell become predisposed to uptake larger amounts of 3BP that prove fatal.   Perhaps cancer takes over normal cells in phases, and one of the first phases might be to upregulate HK2 and allow the cell to take in more glucose.  If that happens before other evidence of cancer affects the cell, it might be seen as "normal" to the outside.  But metabolically it is subject to the killing action of 3BP because it is able to pass in too much 3BP to the cell.  3BP doesn't target cancer.  3BP targets cell receptors that can uptake glucose and 3BP.   If normal cells are already modified with many such receptors, they too are subject to the killing action of 3BP.

 

That's very problematic.  I don't know how they overcome that.   And if this effect is present how did the German liver cancer patient survive so many 3BP therapies?

Edited by pone11, 07 February 2015 - 02:03 AM.

[niner]

3BP exploits the overexpression of the HK2 enzyme in nearly all cancers.   Glucose travels into the cancer cell because it has so many gateways on the cell surface, apparently activated by HK2.   3BP looks like a nutrient and somehow slides in through these gateways.

 

The beauty of this is that most "normal" cells don't have enough of these gateways to let in substantial amounts of 3BP into their cytoplasm.  You are right if the 3BP somehow got into normal cells it might kill them too.   But the mechanism exploited preferentially overdoses just the cancer cells with these HK2 activated gateways for glucose.

 

That's why it would be very hard for cancer to "evolve" past this drug.   Cancer would need to change its entire metabolic strategy.  At that point you wonder would it even be the same disease, and would it progress as rapidly?

 

It's also reported to hit GAPDH.  I'm just surprised that it doesn't hit everything under the sun and therefore have a lot of off-target effects and toxicities.  I suppose that it actually does, at a high enough dose, and we just got lucky due to a quirk of it looking like a nutrient and getting delivered via monocarboxylate transporters. 

[mag1]

My whole idea with the topic tag (now designated) "cancer cure" is to build up a brand following for massively successful cancer drugs.

3-BP qualifies.
What other cancer drugs have induced Tumor Lysis Syndrome or effectively treated someone with end stage liver cancer?

The current topic of cancer is not showing any of these recent results. The topic tag "cancer cure" could help focus attention on the stunning recent results in cancer research. Oncologists have been startled over the last few years at the emergence of effective cancer treatments in late stage patients. These results should be reported onto this forum in an easily accessible way. Perhaps this sense of information organization could spread throughout the forum.

The topic tag cancer has become too unfocussed. People who are searching for quick access to a specific dimension of the word cancer should not have to read through the dozens of threads (many of which have nothing to do with addressing possible treatment options for end stage terminal cancer) to find a specific sense of the word cancer.

If you were to go to a reference library you would not find books and articles on cancer randomly thrown on the floor. Organization is
vitally important when you have a large database of information. This forum could do much better at organizing the information contained in it.

A simple approach is already available. Use the topic tags in a consistent way to provide order. That is what I want to do with the topic tag cancer. I will start a thread explaining the idea and others might start threads in the spirit of what I have in mind for the topic tag cancer cure.



By the way does anyone know the answer to the million dollar question: What is the industrial use of 3-Bromopyruvate?

When you go online, there are Chinese wholesalers that will accept orders for 3-BP at a minimum order size of 25 kg. Some of these suppliers note that they could supply 1000 tons per month of it. What possible industrial use is there for so much 3-BP? Curing the patient in Germany took 128mg doses! The huge industrial application of 3-BP (more than anything else) clarifies the difficulty anticipated in patenting it.

The answer is not easily found online (if it is even present).

[Hint: The answer, if correct makes total sense.]

Anyone?

(Accept rain checks?)