Re-inventing homeopathic approach

I would like your attention towards encouraging results from a new research study announced Tuesday, April 17 at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) meeting in Miami, compared the effectiveness of the vaccine for more than 40 patients treated at UCSF’s Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, at the Seidman Cancer Center at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland and at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

This new study says “A new brain cancer vaccine tailored to individual patients by using material from their own tumors has proven effective in a multicenter phase 2 clinical trial at extending their lives by several months or longer. The patients suffered from recurrent glioblastoma multiforme—which kills thousands of Americans every year.”

I would like to point out 2 major concepts or approaches used in this research study:

1. Tailored to individual patient – This is a newer concept gaining interest in medical field and termed as “Personalized Medicine” which is a medical model proposing the customization of healthcare, with all decisions and practices being tailored to the individual patient. This is one idea which Hahnemann conceptualized 200 years before and mentioned as “Individualisation“.

2. Using material from their own tumor – Well, this refers to “Isopathy” where we give the substance which caused the problem in the first place. It is common in isopathy to give a product of a disease for the disease itself, thus administering the same thing in an attenuated form. And, in homeopathy, we have provings of disease materials which we call them ‘Nosodes’. In Homeopathy, we use nosodes based on the symptoms it gives during proving, not on the basis of its disease name. This is the differentiating point between using remedies based on Isopathy or Homeopathy.

“These results are provocative,” said UCSF neurosurgeon Andrew Parsa, MD, PhD, who led the research. “They suggest that doctors may be able to extend survival even longer by combining the vaccine with other drugs that enhance this immune response.”

The next step, he said, will be a more extensive, randomized clinical trial to look at the effectiveness of the vaccine combined with the drug Avastin, a standard therapy for this type of cancer, compared to the effectiveness of Avastin alone. Those trials, to be run by the National Cancer Institute, will begin enrolling patients later this year.

However, author has not mentioned about Isopathy or Homeopathy in this write-up. I would say that these results indicate re-inventing homeopathic approach which is found effective.