Coley's Toxins

About Coley's Toxins

I'm not going to re-invent the wheel here. I'm going to refer you to the most palatable introduction to Coley's Toxins for the layman—a paid report written by Ralph Moss on his website (www.cancerdecisions.com). It's a 100 page report but is quite inexpensive. For those of you who don't have the patience or time to read through that long report, you can check out Dr. Moss' shorter description of Coley's Toxins for free . There's also a wikipedia page for starters.

Apparently, there was a lay person (an engineer by profession) who used to go around helping hapless patients get Coleys. This article is supposedly written by him. Pretty interesting but not validated: http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/coleys_toxin2.html .

Also, here's a detailed write up by Coley's daugter, the late Helen Coley Nauts: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_251/ai_n6112670/pg_1 . Helen was a remarkable woman who dedicated her life to preserving her father's legacy. If not for her steadfastness, mankind would probably have completely lost Dr. Coley's work.

Here are some interesting pubmed articles on Coley's Toxins:

• The Toxins of William B. Coley and the Treatment of Bone and Soft-Tissue Sarcomas
• Coley's toxins, tumor necrosis factor and cancer research:ahistoricalperspective.

Also of interest, this article indicates that challenging the body with a vaccine after chemotherapy helps to rebuild the immune system:

• http://www.news-medical.net/?id=40460 this report indicates that immunotherapy has value for pediatric sarcoma patients. In particular, they noted that a flu vaccine administered after chemotherapy was able to rebuild the patient's immune system.

Solving the batch-consistency problem

It is widely thought that batch inconsistency was a primary factor in Coley's Toxins not working for some physicians who used it, while working well for others. A Canadian company, MBVax, has produced a batch-consistent version.

"MacAdam (the CEO of MBVax) has solved Coley's major difficulty: maintaining consistency of the brew from batch to batch. His preparation has been tested on terminal cancer patients outside the U.S. and Canada, and he contends that 24 in 38 patients have shown signs of tumor regression, although nothing is published yet. Dr. Vikas Sukhatme, a professor at Harvard Medical School, says he hopes to run clinical trials once the product has been manufactured according to Food and Drug Administration guidelines."

MBVax recently published some results of their Coley Fluid. They claim 8 of 19 chemo resistant late stage breast cancers achieved complete regression. If true, that is an amazing result by conventional standards.

The People's Pharmacy (an NPR program) recently interviewed the MBVax CEO as well as some researchers at Harvard, NIH, Germany:

• http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2010/08/14/780-cancer-and-the-immune-system/
• http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2010/08/07/751-coleys-toxin-cancer-and-im...
• http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2010/08/21/781-unorthodox-cancer-treatments/

How to get Coley's Toxins

For cancer patients wanting Coley's today, I think the best bet is to contact MBVax and ask them for suggestions. The company has relationships with physicians and clinics around the world who may be using their version of Coley's Toxins.

The Issels program has long been using Coley's Toxins as part of their regimen. They started in Germany, moved to Mexico (Tijuana) and now there are 2 additional clinics in the US (Phoenix and Santa Barbara). They can only administer Coley's at their Tijuana operation though. However, Issels currently only uses Coleys subcutaneously, and only once per week. They use Coley's primarily as an adjuvant to their other vaccines. Furthermore, I have mixed feelings about recommending Issels because my wife came down with sepsis there, most likely due to contamination of infusion liquids. While sepsis is a frequent occurrence even in US hospitals, our experience at Issels does give us reason to pause.

Besides the Issels Clinic, there is a another clinic we visited in Tijuana called CHIPSA. Like Issels, they too use Coleys Toxins subcutaneously. This may be due to resource contraints. Intravenous admnistration requires much closer monitoring and hands-on management of the patient by nurses and physicians, whereas subcutanous injections typically do not evoke any serious systemic reactions. Instead, subcutaneous injections generally result in prolonged painful (but not dangerous) swelling and inflammation that typically lasts for a day or two. Nevertheless, we have been in communication with Gar Hildenbrand, who works closely with CHIPSA physicians.

Thirdly, I have heard from another sarcoma patient that the IAT clinic in Bermuda also employs Coley's Toxins.

Lastly, there is a modern, reputable Coley's Toxins trial going on in Frankfurt. This trial is run in collaboration with Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (the late Dr. Old's organization). Unfortunately, it is no longer recruiting. 

I wish I had options to give you for obtaining Coley's Toxins. Unfortunately, due to the current regulatory environment, I think patients in the USA have no choice but to go abroad for it.

Coley's Toxins blog

Finally, my wife and I have created a blog of our Coley's Toxins experience. We hope this will help demystify the treatment and show that it's relatively easy to tolerate in comparison with chemo and radiation.

If you have questions about Coley's Toxins or cancer immunotherapy, write us below in the comment box, and we'll get back to you.