Coley’s toxin

A link between bacteria and tumor therapy was found early, at the beginning of the XVIII century [10]. By the end of the XIX century, Coley [11] developed a treatment for cancer with a mixture of bacterial toxins. In 1943 Shear and Turner [4] found that the antitumor effect of Coley s toxin was due to endotoxins, and after several decades it was shown that the biological activity of LPS was due to the lipid A [5]. We investigated the structures of lipids A with regard to their antitumor activities [12], finding that the optimum in vivo activity is obtained with diglucosamines acylated by 3 long chain fatty acids. 

Endotoxin was initially described in the 19th century, but became the subject of intensive investigation since the 1920s. The clinical syndrome of Gram-negative bacterial sepsis was not described until the early 1950s (Waisbren, 1951). The focus on endotoxin as a critical initiator of sepsis occurred in large part because of a serendipitous confluence of events an attempt to understand the mechanism of action of endotoxin as a component of Coley s toxin used to treat cancer and the... 

In 1893, William Coley, a surgeon at Memorial Hospital in New York City, deliberately injected a mixture of heat-treated bacterial cells into the tumours of his cancer patients. In all, he treated over 900 patients, and there were several dramatic remissions. He was inspired to do this by the observation that cancer patients sometimes experienced remarkable improvement in their condition following a serious bacterial infection. It was as if their already severely damaged bodies were somehow activated by the bacterial onslaught to mount a sustained attack on both the bacterial and cancer cells. Coley s toxins - usually a mixture of killed bacteria of the species Streptococcus... 

Finally, vaccination against cancer is beginning to emerge as a realistic possibility. It will be recalled that Coley s toxins were used to evoke an immune response in an early form of cancer treatment. Now the technique has been reinvented through the introduction of synthetic vaccines raised against portions of the glycoprotein coat of tumour cells. In phase II clinical trials carried out in Canada, the USA and the UK, more than 200 patients with colorectal cancer were treated with this type of vaccine. Most of them experienced the same periods of survival as patients treated with chemotherapy, but their quality of life was better, since they did not suffer from any adverse effects due to drugs. 

Thus, microorganisms have been used in cancer treatment. For example. Moss has a chapter about Coley s Toxins, a mixed bacterial vaccine, in the treatment of cancer (Moss, 1992, pp. 407 12). Moss calls the discovery of these toxins one of the most remarkable happenings in the history of cancer therapy. Discovered in the late nineteenth century by William B. Coley, M.D., chief surgeon at Memorial Hospital (now the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center or MSKCC), who undertook a 40-year experiment in treating and even curing cancer. Coley s Toxins may be regarded as the basis for modem immunotherapy. 

Coley s Toxins are the by-products from two common bacteria. Streptococcus pyrogenes and Serratia marcescens. The toxins can cause a fever anywhere from slightly above normal to 105°F, and a pulse rate of 100 or more, and accompanying chills. In other words, flu-like symptoms. To quote directly from Moss s book ... 

Impressive cure figures were reported, 45-50% and higher. Moss reports that the effects of Coley s Toxins have been studied extensively for over 30 years by Dr. Frances Havas, professor (emeritus) in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Temple University School of Medicine, at Philadelphia. Dr. Havas has stated that Coley s methods would be less dramatic and effective today than 100 years ago, for two main reasons. People have received so many antibiotics by now that their immune systems are less responsive than back in the prepenicillin days. Furthermore, many or most patients have already been treated by conventional methods such as chemotherapy, which decimates the immune system. Sporadic investigations have continued, particularly in Germany and China, sometimes with complete success and at other times with partial success. 

The extension is to the introduction of microorganisms and their toxins to stimulate the immime system as per Coley s Toxins. From there, the extrapolation is to the use of vaccines or serums, as per the Pasteur treatment for rabies. The ultimate goal is preventive inoculation, as for poUo.)... 

Ausubel mentions therapies such as Krebiozen, the Gerson diet, Essiac tea, Coley s Toxins, the Hoxsey Therapy, and Stanislaw Burzynski s antineoplastons, etc., a number of which are further described, for instance, by Moss (1992) and Walters (1993). These therapies have aU been involved in govemment-led prosecutions. 

Martin also returns to Coley s Toxins in a letter in the same issue, but notes that it is illegal in the United States and Canada. However, its use is legal in the Bahamas, and as of June 2006 MB Vax Science (or Bioscience) will supply free Coley s Toxins to the ITL Clinic in the Bahamas. 

Martin also describes treatment with cesium as producing remission in late-stage cancer patients. Another possibility described is a killed vaccine from the dead bacteria of the streptococcus of erysipelas. This vaccine is better known as Coley s Toxins. The genus is Streptococcus and the disease is known as erysipelas, an acute feverish condition with intense local inflammation of the skin and subcutaneous tissue. The treatment can be described as a form of immunotherapy. 

Martin adds the fact that Coley s Toxins were effective in treating patients having foot ulcers and a gangrenous condition, with symptoms of cold feet and lack of a pulse in the lower leg. Conducted by a Dr. Harry Gray at a Veterans Administration Hospital in the 1930s, amputation was avoided. This treatment is presumed to be effective for diabetic patients with foot ulcers. It is further noted that, at the present, physician Glen Wilcoxson, M.D., of Spanish Fort, Alabama, is treating patients with Coley s Toxins. 

Consider the further findings of Helen Coley Nauts, founder of the Cancer Research Institute and the daughter of William B. Coley, the developer of what are called Coley s Toxins. These findings resulted in Cancer Research Institute Monograph No. 8, dated 1980, which documented some 449 cases of cancer remission in patients with bacterial infections. 

In treating subsequent hopeless cases, some went into complete remission but others died from the infection — and in still others the infection could not be induced. However, he made a killed vaccine of the streptococcus of erysipelas, and the successful result was called Coley s Toxins. 

Turning to the June 2004 issue of the Townsend Letter for Doctors Patients, as mentioned earlier, a number of alternative cancer therapies are further explored for example, saunas, what are called vitaletheine modulators, photodynamic therapy, homeopathy, the oncotest, Coley s Toxins, and an overview of protocols. 

Coley s Toxins received an update by Helen Coley Nauts, cited elsewhere, with an introductory letter from Wayne Martin. Martin furnishes some remarkable for instances of cures, and Nauts gives the history behind the development of the toxins. In the course of the article it is mentioned that the toxins produce a beneficial fever. 

Martin, W. 2006. Coley s Toxins A Cancer Treatment History. Townsend Letterfor Doctors and Patients, nos. 229/230 (February/March) 113-118. 

Nauts, H.C. 2004. Coley s Toxins — The First Century. Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, no. 251 (June) 107—116. 

In 1866 in Germany, Busch reported a cure for a histologically verified sarcoma of the face after an attack of erysipelas which induced fever. Busch suggested the possibility of heat being selectively lethal to neoplastic cells. About 25 years later, Coley (1893) administered bacterial toxins in cancer patients in New York which resulted in fever and led to regression of advanced and inoperable cancers. While Coley s toxins led to sustained response in some patients for up to 50 years, because of the uncertainty in preparations and biological activity of the mixed bacterial toxins (MBT) used by Coley, the method was later abandoned, as it proved disastrous for the patients. 

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