Managing immunity in resistant cancer patients correlates to survival: results and discussion of a pilot study

Abstract

AbstractMany cancer patients do not die due to impaired organ functions, but as a result of reduced general conditions, such as cachexia, sarcopenia, depression, infections, or stress. Reduced general health may be caused by immune modifying cytokines released from the tumor into the body. Improvement of immunity would not only reduce cancer side effects through inhibiting cytokine release from the tumor into the blood, but also, according to a new hypothesis, modify the cancer stem cells (CSC) in the tumor, which are believed to drive cancer growth and metastasis. We reported previously several investigations with a dietary fermented soy formulation (FSWW08) in cancer patients, where we saw a) strong reduction of cancer symptoms, b) broken resistance to chemotherapy, and c) a strong reduction of chemotherapy’s toxic side effects, when taken in combination. This publication reports two new findings from a pilot study with postsurgical, treatment resistant patients conducted over four years. First, neither treatment resistance nor side effects were observed. Second, more patients have survived than expected. The improved health and immunity is detected together with increased CSC differentiation, suggesting lower aggressiveness, which was corroborated by increased gene expressions, particularly of steroidal hormones, MAPkinase, NF-κB, and tumor suppressor factor p53, a typical marker of “stemness” or cell differentiation. Although limited by its small, homogenous sample size, the results of this pilot study illustrate the relationship between CSCs differentiation, and the clinical symptoms of immunity, which influence survival outcomes and raise the clinical potential of measuring CSCs in ovarian, prostate, and breast cancers. The improved survival rates are also seen in larger cohort studies, which show similar gene expression profiles, which were induced by FSWW08 in the treatment resistant cancer patients in this study.