Lung Cancer Vaccine Cuba

Lung Cancer Vaccine Cuba

Lung cancer vaccine Cuba - George Keays is not a bad guy. A real estate agent from Colorado and a three-person grandfather, practicing yoga for 65 years and meditating on a regular basis. But the government of the United States, he says, has given him nothing but to break the law. If he means to say, he intended to stay alive. Keays have stage 4 lung cancer. Since the treatment options began to decline this fall, she went to Cuba for the treatment of the vaccine, despite a federal law that forbids Americans to go there for medical care. Now, with the recent tightening of President Trump's rules governing the journey to Cuba, it has become much more difficult to travel there. But Keays needs more vaccines. This spring, he'll be back.

 "I don't want to break the law. But also, I don't want to die, "Keays said.  "People with stage 4 cancer, such as myself, should be allowed to try whatever they want to stay alive, no matter what they think they will work. The last thing they need is the government on your neck over some old rules saying they just take what's available here and die. "

Keays has a lot of companies. In the two years since relations between the US and Cuba have been normalized within President Barack Obama, more and more patients with lung cancer have traveled to Cuba for a vaccine called Cimavax and, more recently, the new vaccine, Vaxira. These patients are an elusive group. None of those who have walked gives them a real reason to go to Cuba when they're applying for a visa, not to mention that many of them were telling customs officials in the US that they were bringing in some bottles of vaccine to the U.S. until they came back. Just a little told their doctors that they used injections of fear that they would refuse to treat them further.

 "I can only see it as a compromise with him because he now has patients with medications that are not approved by the FDA," said a Florida patient named Larry, who requested that his family name not is used. Larry has gone twice to Cuba for the vaccine twice, without telling the doctor, because he "can be afraid that he will be sued or he may stop treating me."

How effective are the vaccines they introduce in their country in their small cold lunch boxes are blurry. None of the vaccines prevent cancer; More specifically, they are a kind of immunotherapy that encourages the immune system to fight diseases in patients with small cell lung cancer. In January, the Roswell comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, NY, launched a Cimavax clinical trial with the Molecular center Cuban Immunology, which developed the vaccine. This is the first joint effort between the two countries since the Cuban Revolution.

Roswell is doing research to determine if they want to do a test similar to Vaxira. It takes many years for a medicine to receive final approval. For many patients, including some who were not accepted in the Roswell process, a trip to Cuba became a widespread option. So popular is this practice that patients in Internet support groups usually change with anecdotes and travel advice about their Cuban journey. Until then, Trump throws a key in the process.

Although Cuba is often known for its pure beaches and pulsing bees, Cuba is also home to an increasingly biotechnology industry. Promoted by high levels of lung cancer in the country, researchers began working on lung cancer vaccines back in the mid-1990. In recent Cuban studies, patients receiving Cimavax live about three to five months longer than those who have not. Available for free Cuba from 2011, has been awarded over 5000 patients from around the world.

Cimavax is currently available in Cuba, Colombia, Peru, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Paraguay. Vaxira, which shows one of the clinical trials in Cuba, can prolong life up to two months, is being tested in Argentina. It is available in the country and in Cuba.

Roswell scientists began collaborating with the Center of Molecular Immunology in Havana, which developed the vaccine in 2011, and scientists from both countries worked in the laboratory of one another for years. In the Roswell experiment, Cimavax is combined with a control-point inhibitor that blocks proteins in cancerous cells called Opdivo.

While discussions about Cimavax circulated in American medical circles for years, let alone Vaxira. The researchers at Roswell are currently conducting the preclinical study of Vaxira on animals to determine whether a vaccine is possible for possible human trials. Dr. Igor Puzanov, Director of the early Phase clinical trials program in Roswell, saying it could take up to a year before a decision can be made if to continue.

 "We know what the vaccine should do," he said.  "It's too early to tell if this happens ". Meanwhile, at the center of Molecular Immunology, scientists are now concentrating on bringing Cimavax to the next step. They work to extend the patient's survival rate by identifying markers to those who respond to the vaccine. Patients with high concentrations of EGF proteins, for example, have been shown to be more responsive to vaccines than those who do not. Camilo Rodriguez, a clinical researcher at the center, who worked at Cimavax for 15 years, said he is confident that, in the end, the vaccine can be used in a number of cancers.

"We believe that the vaccine can be very effective against prostate cancer, for example, because these patients often have a high level of EGF and has been linked to the spread of cancer," Rodriguez said, who was seated in his laboratory. Finally, we feel that it can be useful in all types of cancer that affect the head, neck, bladder and prostate.

The American doctor wasn't so sure. While some have been cautiously optimistic about Cimavax and await the results of the Roswell study with interest, others complain that the vaccine has been getting oversell and require further investigation. Dr. Robert Doebele, professor of medical oncology at the University of Colorado, Denver and a senior editor of the American Cancer Association Research Journal Cancer Research, has recalled sitting in a meeting with a dozen other oncologists discussing how Better the drug market. Someone in the room exclaims:  "Do what Cimavax does! "

 "We are all Colectionati," said Doebele, who is an oncologist for George Keays.  "It's very funny. The fact is that I spent a few hours a month to answer my patients ' questions about this. It is very prominent on the Internet and patients are keen to learn about it. But the reality is that we don't know if this works. "

Dr. Roy S. Herbst, head of medical oncology at Yale University and a nationally recognized expert in the treatment of lung cancer, shared regularity. Herbst said that  "Without looking at the new stats, it is not very impressive ". For the moment, he added,  "I'm not too worried that people can't go to Cuba ". Like other patient doctors interviewed for this story, Doebele advised Keays not to go to Cuba for the vaccine. One reason for that is that Keays currently uses Tagrisso, a standard therapy for low-cell lung cancer. Doebele is concerned that if Keays shows an improvement when taking it and one of the vaccines in Cuba, it is impossible to know which drug is responsible. But Doebele has other concerns.

 "My biggest concern is security due to lack of supervision and regulation. I can't control what he does; I don't even know where he managed it. Is it a legitimate clinic where it arrived? Said Doebele, "I think we talked about it." But he didn't. Keays requested participation in the Roswell process, as Doebele suggested, but was put on the waiting list. He became frustrated that he might reach the placebo group in the study and therefore decided to  "Go straight to the front. Cuba. "

Keays arrived at the clinic at Pradera in October and was told that the most suitable vaccine for his cancer was Vaxira. After consulting with the family doctor, the Boulder doctor William L. Blanche, who traveled with him, Keays received his first dose.  "Twenty minutes after I got it, I felt a little tired, but that's it, " Keays said. "The next day, I left an hour. I feel great. " If Keays was impressed by the professionalism of doctors, Blanche was even better.

 "On paper, this looks very promising," Blanche said about the vaccine.  "Resonates as a medical voice and is potentially a major addition. It is too early to recommend patients, but I will wake them up and let them make decisions. If I had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, I'd certainly go down and I'll make this part of my therapy. " One of the other patients at La Pradera when Keays was Eduardo Sanchez, Spain, a thin man with gray hair. Diagnosed with advanced lung cancer in stage 4, Sanchez says he has also spent most of the treatments available. Like most American patients, he learned a lot from what he knew about the Cuban vaccine on the Internet.