Is DCA (Dichloroacetate) agiant leap forward in the fight against cancer?
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I have done a 1 month trial of DCA in parallel with conventional chemo. The background is distributed colorectal mets. The conventional chemo was Cetuximab + Irinotecan + Raltitrexed. CT before and after trial. DCA at 12.5mg/kg/pd
Results summarised:
Some good objective and subjective effects but probably no significant disease control. Definitely reduced hepatic inflammation and oedema.
However, severe neuropathy including peripheral and CNS - probable colon paralysis. Definite mood changes (benign mostly) but also memory function disruption some of which is slow to recover.
Treated Neuropathy as DLT (being hypercautious) and reduced DCA load to every other day for last 14 days. It is physiologically active but the side-effects exceeded benefits for me.
I note that it seemed to beneficially impact platelet counts and otherwise was synchronous with a reduction in normal chemo side-effects. Whether it inhibited the conventional chemo I am unsure.
Kind regards - Ian
you can help find a cure..and ask questions on the message board of this research project http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/...
It may have some possibilities. It has shown some promise in animal tests but clinical trials in humans will need to be done to determine its efficacy.
Human trials rarely repeat the results of animal trials. Many different therapies have shown promise in animal trials only to show disappointment in human trials.
The animal trials have shown some promise but results were mixed. It is not a cure all --- if it works at all. DCA has also shown to CAUSE cancer in lab animals.
http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/news/be...
i recently became of aware of this medication. (thanks randy!), and i have been researching it and intend to discuss this with my oncologist at my next appointment. i have to hope that a cure or at least control is going to happen soon.
Please see Google search for more details on Dichloroacetate (DCA). No comments.
At the moment I would place DCA into the fad status . . it's a really popular . . "What if!!" However not enough research has been done using real human beings to establish what, if any, benefit there might be. Several people have already died trying to guess what dosages to use and there are indications that if has no effect on those with lung cancer and sarcoma. This really needs to be studied more, but people are so desperate for a cure they are willing to do almost anything.
Incidentally there are literally hundreds of similar type drugs all with similar promise (have established anti-tumor effect in animals) . . you can just go to Clinical Trials and take a look at them. It seems that if people are going to experiment with this type of thing at least do it so it will be documented. If it fails there will be a record why and if it works than you'll give hope to others. There are hundreds of clinical trials that show just as much, if not more, promise as DCA:
http://clinicaltrials.gov/
I've looked into and so far remain unimpressed. Any time you cannot register a specific result within four to six weeks . . well, what good is a treatment for cancer if you can't have pretty immediate results. Cancer is the uncontrollable growth of cells . . and if you cannot stop that growth within a month or two than the treatment is probably ineffective. I have read the blog of people taking this and have not seen anything close to being a 'giant leap'. Just desperate people.
http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/news/be...
Back in Feb the American Cancer Society responded to all the hype about this:
http://www.cancer.org/aspx/blog/comments...
Death of a cancer blogger using DCA:
http://dcajournal.blogspot.com/...
There is no cure for any condition of cancer yet, some Dichloracate is able to fight back but there is no truth in it.
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