Coley's Toxins for sarcoma and intractable cancer - Letters to the Editor - Letter to the Editor

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  Feb-March, 2003  

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Editor:

This is the story of the wonderful possibilities of Coley's Toxins. It is so simple to make and use.

First a word about William Coley MD. As a very young surgeon in New York City he was in 1891, age 29. He was able to get far greater fees than were many older surgeons. He had referred to him a 17 year-old young woman by the name of Bessie Dashiell who was a dear friend of John D. Rockefeller Jr. She lived near New York City and had taken a trip via rail to the Pacific Northwest. She had caught her hand on a seat in a railway car. The injury developed into round cell sarcoma. Coley amputated her arm but it was of no avail. She died a horrible death.

Her death weighed on Coley and he spent many hours after work going through the records of New York Hospital reviewing all sarcoma cases back to 1885. He said that there just had to be a better way to treat cancer.

He found an exciting case and clue to treating cancer: The patient was a very poor German living in an eastside slum in lower Manhattan. His name was Stein. He had round cell sarcoma on the neck and had had surgery for it three times. He had a huge malignant ulcer on his neck. He had been listed as an utterly hopeless patient. At this time he developed a severe infection of erysipelas. He survived the infection and in just a few days his huge malignant ulcer healed. He left the hospital in good health. That was in 1885. In 1891 Coley spent many hours searching for Stein in the eastside slums. At last Coley found Stein in good health and free from cancer.

Coley then decided to treat cancer by infecting the patients with erysipelas. He found a patient by the name of Zola who was another poor immigrant living in the lower east side of Manhattan. Like Stein he had sarcoma of the neck but also of the tonsil. The tumor on the tonsil, was blocking food intake. It seemed likely that he would die of cancer but also he was in danger of death from starvation. After several attempts, Coley was able to infect Zola with a severe infection of erysipelas which nearly caused his death. He had a fever of 105.5 with vomiting but as in the case of Stein, his malignant tumor healed and the tumor on his tonsil decreased so that he could again swallow food. Zola was in remission from cancer.

When Coley tried to infect other cancer patients with erysipelas, he could produce no infections. In two cases he was able to infect the patients but they died of the infection.

It was then that Coley made a killed vaccine of the streptococcus of erysipelas. It had but little anticancer activity. Then Coley added to his killed vaccine, the newly discovered bacterium, Seratia marcescens. It was said to be non-pathogenic with humans. So a killed vaccine of the streptococcus of erysipelas and S. marcescens was made. It was killed by heating to 70[degrees]C and this was Coley's Toxins. It contained the dead bacteria and the endotoxins which they had produced. At a proper dose it was harmless.

Early on, a cancer patient was referred to Coley who was thought to be hopeless. He was 16 year-old John Ficken. It had been biopsy -- proven to be sarcoma. It caused a huge bulge in his abdomen and much pain. Coley gave the first injection of his new vaccine into this huge tumor. The reaction to the injection was the same as an infection of erysipelas. The patient first had chills and shaking followed by fever. The injections were given every other day.

In the case of a severe infection of erysipelas, the tumor healed quickly. Here the process worked more slowly but the huge tumor started to decrease in size and there was marked pain relief. Injections were started on January 24, 1893. By May 13, 1893 the tumor was almost gone, the boy had gained ten pounds in weight. Coley sent the boy home. He lived a normal life until 1919 when he died of a heart attack at age 47. So Coley had an astounding success in treating his first cancer patient. The duration of treatment was three and a half months.

The treating of cancer with Coley's Toxins was quickly used by Coley and other doctors with much success but on December 15, 1994 there was an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association saying that Coley's Toxins was useless in the treatment of cancer.

However other doctors were beginning to use Coley's Toxins in treating cancer. In December 1895, Dr. Storrs of the Hartford, Connecticut Hospital had a patient with breast cancer. She was losing strength and weight. Her tumor was the size of an orange. Coley's Toxins were injected into her tumor. Thirty-nine injections were given between mid-December 1895 and mid-March 1896. By then there was no sign of a tumor. The patient had regained the 25 pounds of lost weight. She died in 1943 at age 80 of a cause other than cancer.

What was unusual about this case was that there was a discharge of necrotic tissue that had to be removed by drains. In most cases of treatment of cancer with Coley's Toxins, the tumor will decrease in size without the formation of necrotic tissue. When it happens, drains must be established.