Boobs On Ice™ : DCA the Tiny Cancer Killer

“If there were a magic bullet, ... it might be something like DCA…” Newsweek, January 23, 2007

Beakers DCA is a tiny molecule, odorless, colorless, inexpensive, relatively non-toxic and researchers including Evangelos Michelakis MD at the University of Alberta think it may soon become an effective treatment for many forms of cancer.

Michelakis, a professor at Alberta has shown that dichloroacetate (DCA) causes regression in several cancers, including lung, breast, and brain tumors.

Crossing borders

Alberta's program fosters research that crosses the boundaries of traditional disciplines and brings scientific research to the clinical treatment of cancer.

Which brings us back to DCA, which has been used for decades to treat children with metabolism malfunction due to mitochondrial diseases.

As a kind of aside, mitochondria, the energy producing units in cells, have been connected with cancer since the 1930s, when researchers first noticed that these organelles dysfunction when cancer is present.

BUT until recently, it was believed that cancer-affected mitochondria are permanently damaged because of, not the cause of, the cancer. Michelakis wondered about this and began testing DCA,which activates a critical enzyme as a way to "revive" cancer-affected mitochondria.

The results astounded him

Michelakis and his colleagues found that DCA caused the mitochondrias to start functioning again in many cancers, showing that the way they worked was suppressed by the cancer but not permanently damaged by it.

More importantly, they found that there was a drastic cut in tumor growth both in test tubes and in animals. And DCA, unlike most current chemotherapies, did not have any effects on normal, non-cancerous tissues.

"I think DCA can be selective for cancer because it attacks a fundamental process in cancer development that is unique to cancer cells," Michelakis said. "One of the really exciting things about this compound is that it might be able to treat many different forms of cancer”.

Plus DCA being such a small molecule is easily absorbed in the body and reaches areas that other drugs cannot, making it possible to treat brain cancers, for example.

Also, because DCA has been used in both healthy people and sick patients with mitochondrial diseases, researchers already know that it is a relatively non-toxic molecule that can be immediately tested patients with cancer.

”The results are intriguing because they point to the critical role that mitochondria play: they impart a unique trait to cancer cells that can be exploited for cancer therapy”
Dario Alteri
Director University of Massachusetts Cancer Center

Note:

"Alberta?", you might ask, wondering why this research isn't coming out of Sloane-Ketering or the National Cancer Institute. But the University of Alberta, has an inovative Strategic Training Program in Translational Cancer Research funded by the CIHR Institute of Cancer Research, the Alberta Cancer Board, through the Alberta Cancer Foundation and the National Cancer Institute of Canada and the Canadian Cancer Society. It provides graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and clinical fellows to train in multidisciplinary translational cancer research - and to do that research.

University of Alberta DCA

About My Cancer

Invasive Lobular Carcinoma
My form of breast cancer is less common than others. In fact only about 6 to 8% of cases of breast cancer are the invasive form that is based in the lobules, not in the milk ducts.
Invasive, sometimes called Infiltrating, is a scary word. In most cases this form of breast cancer has been present for 8–10 years when detected by a mammogram or physical exam.
In my case there was clearly an area that felt thickened or dense on December 6, 2007. A mammogram the next afternoon was not able to detect it but it clearly appeared on ultrasound and was confirmed by multiple biopsies the same day.
During those 8 to 10 years the cancer took to become apparent to me, there has been plenty of opportunity for those invasive cells to get out of the breast and spread to the rest of the body.
It is after all, by definition, an invasive form of cancer.
Each year about 190 thousand women are diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in the US and about 40 thousand women will die of the disease. The larger the mass is when discovered the more risk. Mine had tentacled almost 5cm into the surrounding tissue and two other areas in the breast were discovered as well.
My chances of living another 10 years without cancer in another area are about 40%. The likelihood of one of my other underlying health conditions doing the job before that is 20%. it took a few months to get used to that idea.
Now though my attitude is that at least I know what I'm facing. It's just not what I expected. Life changes in an instant.

Comments

Susan, Hi. Check out this more recent CancerWise story on M. D. Anderson's Fatigue Clinic. There's newer info and more detail. Our fatigue docs say it's crucial for patients with fatigue to see a fatigue specialist. Hope you can find one.

http://tinyurl.com/3zkjfp

Also, I learned in writing about our sleep clinic for cancer patients and their spouses that many times patients think their fatigue is from treatment or the disease but it also could be from a sleeping disorder like sleep apnea, which is very treatable. Just a thought.

http://tinyurl.com/3tdjfh

All the best!

Darcy

Posted by: Darcy De Leon | Jun 06, 2008 at 11:57 PM

Hi, i kept looking trough your utube videos and the comments from other people. I am glad you are telling you story, it looks like people really need to hear it.

http://g4gritts.blogspot.com/

Posted by: Dasha | Oct 02, 2008 at 02:08 PM