One of the physicians SurvivorNet collaborates with on lung cancer resources messaged us to point out a news story that he thought really missed the mark. It’s about a 40-year-old woman who says she’s doing well in her lung cancer treatment because of an alternative therapy. We are of course very hesitant, and indeed skeptical of unproven alternative regimens without the data to back them up. But our trusted lung cancer expert pointed what he thought was another misleading element of the article in The Daily Mail. Namely that the woman in question turned down an effective new targeted lung cancer treatment. This was given very little attention.
Kate Malvenan is ALK positive, meaning that she has a mutation that makes her eligible for a drug called Alectinib, which is a gene therapy.
Read MoreOf these non-small-cell patients, 4% are ALK positive, which means that they have a genetic mutation on the ALK gene. ALK stands for anaplastic lymphoma kinase, and it’s actually more of a “rearrangement” than a “mutation,” and it sends a message to the body to make what’s called tyrosene kinase. And tyrosene kinase fuels cancer growth.
This discovery is so exciting because it means certain drugs can be used to target that mutation, and stop tyrosene kinase from fueling the growth of the cancerous tumor. Alectinib, the drug that Melvanan was initially prescribed, does exactly that — it inhibits the functionality of tyrosene kinase, so that it can’t help the tumor grow.
Malvenan ultimately opted for an alternative therapy that was available in Cancun, Mexico. “A friend told me about a cancer clinic in Mexico and all the incredible results he had seen there. I had no other choice. I decided I was going to do it. Two weeks later I was in Mexico.”
Malvenan received her treatment at a center called “Hope4Cancer” in Cancun, Mexico and it cost $39,000 for the three week therapy. But when she received a scan after her first treatment, her tumor was reduced by 75%, there was no cancer left in her lymph nodes, and the cancer that had spread to her liver was reduced.
To be clear, there is no evidence that this therapy actually worked, or is repeatable in other patients.
Alternative therapies aren’t recommended by most doctors, and can actually be pretty dangerous in some cases. “Because our Food and Drug Administration doesn’t study them, the doses, for example, may be very different from the doses that you think you’re getting. And actually, they may not be the medication that you think you’re getting,” says Dr. Heather Yeo, Colorectal Surgeon and Surgical Oncologist at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian.
And often the side effects of alternative treatments can be detrimental as well. “Alternative medicines are known to cause problems when they interact with conventional therapy. Some of the medicines can make it so when you’re getting other treatments, you’re getting different doses of your treatment, and they can actually affect the absorption of the treatments that we know that work. So, it’s really important to have a conversation with your provider.”
“[I] was told [alectinib] would only give me a two year life expectancy and I needed to live much longer than that,” she told the Daily Mail of her decision to go with alternative therapy.
Malvenan says that her daughter is her inspiration and keeps her motivated to survive her cancer. “Annabelle has no idea about my cancer. She is too little and didn’t need to know that I could die. I told her I was going on a long and boring trip to Bali for work, tears were flooding out of my eyes when I had to leave her. I didn’t know what I was going into and whether I’d come back alive. Without her I wouldn’t have the motivation or strength to fight.”
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