Word: tumors
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...fails to respond properly; its usually formidable defense units refrain from moving in and destroying the intruders. Unlike healthy cells, which stop reproducing after repairing damage or contributing to normal growth, the aberrant cells respect few limits or boundaries. They continue to proliferate wildly, forming a growing mass or tumor that expands into healthy tissue and competes with normal cells for nutrition. Not content with wreaking local damage, the burgeoning tumor sends out groups of malevolent cells, like amphibious invasion forces, into the bloodstream, which carries them all over the body. Some perish on their mission. But here and there...
...substance that has caused all this excitement was discovered in 1957 by Virologists Alick Isaacs and Jean Lindenmann. Isaacs, who died of a nonmalignant brain tumor at age 45 in 1967, was investigating influenza viruses at London's National Institute for Medical Research. There he met Lindenmann, who had arrived from Switzerland in July 1956. Lindenmann, now head of experimental microbiology at the University of Zurich, stayed in London only a year. But it was time well spent. Over a cup of tea that August, the two scientists discovered a mutual fascination with a biological phenomenon known as viral interference...
...cancer. After a month, the interferon-treated mice were in good health; those in an untreated control group had leukemia. Gresser then went on to demonstrate that IF actually prevented leukemia in mice that had been specially bred to develop it. Says he: "The interferon inhibited the multiplication of tumor cells...
Strander's results sounded exciting to Dr. Jordan Gutterman, of the M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute in Houston. He flew to Sweden to observe Strander's work, and soon became a convert. Says he: "There was no question. He was having good results." Back home, Gutterman obtained money from a private foundation to buy enough Finnish IF to try it on 38 patients with advanced breast cancer, multiple myeloma or lymphoma. Again the results were encouraging. Seven of 17 breast cancer patients had positive results, as did six of ten with myeloma and six of eleven with lymphoma...
...hours of her first injection, she could lift it." Another breast cancer victim is in remission after 15 months of interferon therapy. Gutterman also reports a wide range of sensitivity among patients, some showing improvement within 48 to 72 hours and a 50% reduction in the size of their tumors within three to four weeks after IF therapy. One patient with myeloma received interferon for three months with no apparent effect. But one month after the treatment ended, his tumor began to shrink. Presumably IF had had a delayed effect...