Boron Neutron Capture Therapy

If your tumour is a Glioma, you should investigate BNCT, – boron neutron capture therapy – a one-session radiotherapy treatment, with minimal side- effects, and improved survival to date. This promising technique is still in trials at the following:

Professor Robert Zamenhof
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center,
Dept of Radiology,
1 Deaconess Road,
Boston MA 02215,
USA.
Tel: +1 617 667 0175
Fax: +1 617 632 0235
Web: www.bnct.org (For detailed explanations and ways to contact clinical and research staff.)

Professor Dr Wolfgang Sauerwein
University Hospital, Essen GFS, Hufelanderstr.55, 45122 Essen, Germany,
(in association with NRG Petten, Netherlands)
Tel: +49 201 7232052
Fax: +49 201 7235908
Email: w.sauerwein@uni-essen.de
Web: www.uni-essen.de/strahlentherapie/bnct

Dr Heikki Joensuu
HUCH Department of Oncology, Haartmaninkatu 4, 00290 Helsinki, Finland
Tel: +358 9 471 73208
Fax: +358 9 471 74203
Email: Heikki.Joensuu@huch.fi
Web: www.vtt.fi/ket/ket1/bnct/bnctpro1.htm

Studsvik Medical AB, SE-611 82 Nykoping, Finland
Tel: +46 155 22 18 01
Fax: +46 155 26 30 50
Email: BNCT@studsvik.se
Web: www.bnct.net

Dr Keiji Kanda, Research Reactor Institute
Kyoto University, Kumatori-cho, Sennan-gun, 590-04 Japan
e-mail: kanda@kuca.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp

Dr Leon Turjanski,
Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica, Argentina
Web: www.cnea.gov.ar/bnct/eng.htm

For Brain Tumours in general

For Anti-neoplastons Therapy only, contact:

Stanislaus R Burzynski, MD, PhD
Richmond Avenue, 260 Houston, TX 77082, U.S.A.,
Tel: +1 281 597 0111.

Clinical Trials: www.virtualtrials.org

This web site, supported by the Musella Foundation for Brain Tumour Research and Information, maintains extensive treatment and clinical trial information for brain tumours.

Another approach for Gliomas is the use of a live strain of the Herpes virus – HSV 1716. This is still at the research stage, but might prove promising in the future.

Nikolai G Rainov, Carsten Fels, Jan Wilhelm Droege, Christoph Schäfer, Christof M Kramm and Ting-Chao Chou. Temozolomide enhances herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase/ganciclovir therapy of malignant glioma. Cancer Gene Therapy, September 2001, Volume 8, Number 9, Pages 662-668.

Radiotherapy and Brain Tumours

Another kind of super-targeted radiotherapy which may be useful for brain tumours is Stereotactic Radio Surgery, also known as the Gamma Knife, which has been available in Europe for 25 years. As it is a “push-button technique”, it can also be used to treat brain metastases of tumours from other primary sites. Up to 3 or 4 metastases can be treated in sequence, at any one time.

WARNING: You should however probably avoid prophylactic cranial irradiation which is often done to supposedly prevent brain metastases in lung and breast cancer. There is no known survival benefit at present from prophylactic cranial irradiation. Brain metastases may occur anyway, and you will then be left without a weapon of last resort, as in general there is a limit to how much radiation the brain can bear. (About 40 or 50 Gys, or 40,000 to 50,000 rads, though some top American radiologists will occasionally exceed this limit if sufficient time has elapsed since the last treatment, and the situation is desperate.) A new US-led experimental approach for inoperable tumours in other parts of the body is simply to open up surgically and irradiate tumours close-to. This may be worth investigating where there are no other options.

For protection against the side-effects of radiation, you may want to consider taking Alkylglycerols. These are special fats found primarily in Shark Liver Oil and human mother’s milk. Alkylglycerols not only protect from the side effects of radiation, (and chemotherapy), they also have an anti-cancer effect per se. This has been demonstrated well in animal studies, including one at Johns Hopkins University Medical School which showed control over brain tumours. Thus it seems unlikely that you need worry that the cancer will also be protected from the radiation. See suppliers

Glioma

If you have a glioma, it is worth considering the Ketogenic Diet as part of your treatment strategy, as evidence suggests this may offer more effectiveness than conventional therapy alone:

Ketogenic Diet Pub Med.