Doctor tries for his own cure

[Guest guest]

I would not try this, but I thought you might be interested in reading what this

doctor is doing byd playing Russian Roulette and treating himself.

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Lawrence Burgh has a sober outlook on life. A 48-year-old physician whose career

has centred on treating seriously ill patients, Burgh was diagnosed with cancer

in December 2006. Yet despite his clinical experience, he has taken an

extraordinary step to try to rid himself of his illness, a step many would

consider to be a medical heresy.

Burgh is one of a growing number of patients who have been dosing themselves

with a simple laboratory chemical that has never before been used to treat

cancer in people. Most are doing so without the help of doctors, and none is

enrolled in any systematic clinical trial of the substance. Instead, they are

buying it over the internet, and sharing their experiences of it in online

chatrooms. For them, the unlicensed, untested drug represents their last best

chance of survival.

That's not the way cancer specialists see it. For them, the activities of Burgh

and those like him are indicative of what could become a dangerous new trend, in

which groups of seriously ill people get together online to discuss, source and

try untested drugs whose safety and efficacy is uncertain.

The drug in this case, known as DCA, is a widely available chemical that cannot

be patented. In basic laboratory tests and experiments in rats it has shown

promise as an anti-cancer agent, but in people it may yet show side effects that

could further damage the lives of people who take it. Scientists investigating

the potential of DCA as a cancer treatment fear that any deaths or injury caused

by its premature, unregulated use could damage their work - and the welfare of

patients far into the future.

Burgh's quest to cure himself began last month, shortly after he was told the

cancer in his thigh had spread to his lungs. " My prognosis is very poor, " he

says. " Standard chemotherapy would give me only a slim chance of survival at

five years. " So he turned to DCA, after reading about the promising lab

experiments in New Scientist (20 January, p 13).

DCA, or dichloroacetic acid, is an analogue of acetic acid in which chlorine

atoms replace two of the three hydrogen atoms on the methyl group. Because it is

a corrosive acid, it must be " buffered " to damp down the acidity, and it is

usually administered as sodium dichloroacetate.

In January, a study by Evangelos Michelakis and his colleagues at the department

of medicine at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, suggested that DCA

could shrink several types of tumour in rats, by exploiting a previously ignored

metabolic pathway in the cell (see " How DCA could affect cancer " , below). " I was

intrigued by the proposed mechanism, " says Burgh (not his real name; this

article uses a pseudonym to protect his privacy). " The biochemistry made sense

to me. I subsequently read dozens of articles and abstracts on DCA before I

decided I wanted to try it. "

On 27 February, he self-administered his first dose, and for the next month took

DCA twice a day, monitoring his blood and urine for signs of any problems, and

visiting his oncologist, who was aware of what he was doing, once a week.

Because DCA is not an approved drug in the US, the UK or anywhere else, Burgh

had to find his own supply. Using his contacts he obtained raw DCA, then asked a

chemist friend to buffer it and check its purity.

Burgh is not alone in his attempts to procure the drug. Already, within weeks of

Michelakis's paper being published, a substantial online community has grown up,

largely centred on the website www.thedcasite.com which declares itself to be a

gateway for information on DCA. At least eight of the individuals who have

posted contributions on the site's chatroom, including Burgh, claimed to be

taking DCA or giving it to a close relative. By 21 March, the chatroom had 135

active members - most of them from the US, Canada, the UK and Australia - plus

posts from numerous unregistered users, many swapping tips on how to get hold of

DCA, how to prepare the chemical for human consumption, and what supplements

they should be taking to minimise side effects.

" This is pretty much a new phenomenon, " says Kate Law, director of clinical

trials at research charity Cancer Research UK. " There has always been an

industry for vulnerable people, but the magnitude of it has multiplied

exponentially. The internet has changed the world for people who are looking for

miracles. "

Michelakis himself warns that people taking DCA could do themselves serious

harm. The chemical is known to increase the risk of nerve damage in people who

have been given it in clinical trials for other reasons. It may also cause liver

damage and interact with existing anti-cancer drugs in unexpected ways. " Since

many anti-cancer drugs are neurotoxic, these interactions could be fatal, "

Michelakis says. Worst of all, he says, if patients are taking DCA outside

clinical trials, such damaging side effects may go unrecorded.

It is rather lengthy, but the entire article can be read here:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19325973.800-cancer-therapy-when-all-else-\

fails.html?full=true

FYI

Lottie