Convalescent Plasma for treatment

[Javelin18]

GreatJohn's post about the amazing drop in his PSA level, had me thinking again about convalescent plasma for cancer treatment. My mind tends to make unusual connections. When I first was diagnosed, convalescent plasma for treating COVID was in the news. I wondered whether taking white blood cells from cancer patients that had remarkable recoveries from cancer, and injecting those into patients that are not responding, could be an effective treatment.

Prior to the aids epidemic, international travelers would receive Gamma Globulin shots to boost their immune systems. I recall they were mixes of white blood cells from a broad group of people. That practice stopped when AIDS became prevalent. I'm now wondering if a cancer Gamma Globulin shot made from recovered patient plasma might train the immune system to attach cancer.

I had mentioned this a while back to Dr Dorff (City of Hope) and she said that they had recently begun collecting bone marrow samples from recovered patients. I still think it is a potentially valuable line of research, and would like to see someone move forward with it. Perhaps those of you being treated at Comprehensive Cancer Centers could also mention this to your doctors, to see if we can generate some interest.

[Lyubov]

Sounds intriguing, & promising. Let's hope it's pursued.

[Spyder54 in reply to Lyubov]

Javelin, do not forget this idea with Dr Aparicio at MDA, or City of Hope. I remember back 20 years ago, when an associate in our office became ill with non Hodgekins Lymphoma, several of us drove down to UCLA for Plasma to be spun out to help him survive. They called it liquid Gold. He is alive and healthy today (think he and his wife had 4 children after this).Also, I had a serious Achilles Tendonosis issue which they took my blood, spun out the Plasma and re-injected into my heel. Called PRP- Plasma Rich Protein injection. I had great result. Tiger Woods and many Pro Athletes hv had similar good results. I believe you are on to something.

[Lyubov in reply to Spyder54]

Hi Spyder, I think you inadvertently posted your reply to Javelin under my comment. Maybe you can redo to make sure Javelin reads your encouraging post.

[Spyder54 in reply to Lyubov]

LyuboyRe posted to Javelin. ThanksMike

[Javelin18]

Thanks to both of you for the feedback. I think the idea is something that could be tested easily in vitro. . I will continue to talk with researchers to see if any are interested.

[Spyder54]

Javelin, do not forget this idea with Dr Aparicio at MDA, or City of Hope. I remember back 20 years ago, when an associate in our office became ill with non Hodgekins Lymphoma, several of us drove down to UCLA for Plasma to be spun out to help him survive. They called it liquid Gold. He is alive and healthy today (think he and his wife had 4 children after this).Also, I had a serious Achilles Tendonosis issue which they took my blood, spun out the Plasma and re-injected into my heel. Called PRP- Plasma Rich Protein injection. I had great result. Tiger Woods and many Pro Athletes hv had similar good results. I believe you are on to something.Mike

[Javelin18]

Realizing I know almost nothing about the immune system, I started educating myself. My wanderings through research papers led me to this recent paper on PCa vaccines, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl... . The paper summarizes the current state of the art in PCa vaccine development. This seems to be the avenue where my idea on convalescent plasma could be tested.

What I have learned so far is that convalescent plasma is recognized as foreign and is removed from the body as normal cell death of lymphocytes occurs. This leads to a short term effectiveness, which is prolonged by depletion of native lymphocytes. Lympocytes are depleted from fighting infection in COVID, and from PCa treatments that deplete white blood cells.

I'm thinking a more useful approach would be to collect dendritic cells from patients in remission. Next T cells would be removed from a patient with active disease, then expose their T cells to dendritic cells from the patient in remission. The next step would be to convert those T cells that now recognize cancer antigens to T memory stem cells, perform a rapid expansion, then re-inject them into the patient with active cancer. This is an adaptation of the Sipeluecel-T (Provenge) therapy using dendritic cells naturally sensitive to PCa rather than dendritic cells primed with a single antigen.

There is a saying, "The more you know, the more you realize how little you know." Learning about the immune system is humbling, but the more articles I read, the more I get a glimmer of understanding. A good overview of the players in the adaptive immune system can be found on Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adapt...