"Nobel fight" against cancer: breakthrough in the treatment of deadly tumors. A new method of fighting cancer has been created

When the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded last year for the creation of molecular machines, many thought that they were some kind of mental toys. And they will remain so for a long time. Although it was already noted then that such a technique could be used for targeted delivery of drugs into the body. But it will still be exotic for many years: it’s too complicated and [...]

As Deputy Director of the Center Alexander Kozhevnikov said, to isolate from the bark useful substances scientists used the subcritical solvent extraction method. “If several years ago, in order to obtain antioxidants from birch bark, it took a sufficient amount of time, depending on the method, from a week to several hours, then we managed to obtain the extract in half an hour,” says Alexander Kozhevnikov. […]

Killers beneficial bacteria in the gut, antibiotics reduce cancer patients' chances of winning serious illness. Two studies at once showed that these bacteria are very necessary for defeating malignant tumors. Two studies have shown that antibiotics interfere with the body's ability to fight cancer. These drugs, designed to fight bacteria, have already received a bad reputation due to the fact that […]

Nanoparticles of iron oxides can help in the treatment of cancer. To do this, it is necessary to apply the magnetic biodetection method, which determines the characteristics of the organism by its response to an external magnetic field. Experts were able to confirm the very possibility of using iron oxide nanoparticles in biodetection. It is noted that due to the use electromagnetic field microcomponents of the compound contained in tumor cells heat up and destroy metastases.

Japanese scientists have discovered that eggs from genetically modified chickens can be used to fight cancer. Doctors say beta-interferon prices are currently extremely high but could be halved by using a fancy new method to create therapeutic drugs. These drugs are already used to stimulate the body's immune system to combat certain types of cancer, […]

The idea of ​​a new type of fight against cancer is to “train” the cells surrounding the tumor to prevent it from growing and forming metastases. As a kind of “causative agent” of these cells, the researchers intend to use the SI-CLP protein, which should be delivered to a specific area thanks to the inactivated virus. Based on the words of the head of the Oncology Research Institute of the Tomsk National Research Institute medical center Hopes […]

Injecting vitamin E extract into the bloodstream has a very quick effect: in 24 hours cancer tumor begins to shrink in size, and after ten days almost completely disappears, say British scientists from the University of Glasgow. On this moment Researchers have found that vitamin E is able to find and destroy skin cancer tumors. However, they confidently declare that this […]

Researchers at the University of Queensland have found that patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma are much more likely to survive if they have a greater diversity of T cells. It is known that T cells help the human body “fight off” infections, including such as influenza. However, only new data could indicate that they are also capable of killing malignant cells.

Preventing the development of breast cancer and the occurrence of metastases in other organs has become possible, say researchers from the UK Cancer Research Institute. Scientists conducted a series of experiments on mice. It turns out that the key lies in blocking the LOXL2 enzyme. Exactly high level The enzyme LOXL2 helps cancer cells spread throughout the body, leading to death, experts have discovered. The researchers used chemical compounds and […]

For several years, researchers have been developing new approach to treatment oncological diseases, which involves using viruses in the fight against tumors - they infect and kill cancer cells, leaving healthy cells unharmed. Recent data have shown that this approach, which is also known in medicine as oncolytic virotherapy, has enormous potential, much more than previously thought.

Prostate cancer is for men what breast cancer is for women. It is the No. 1 cause of death after laryngeal cancer, but most men cannot put two words together about this disease. That is why prevention, which reduces risks to a minimum, is also lame. So, everything you wanted to know about prostate cancer: how to cure it and how to prevent it from happening in the first place.

Treatment

There are several methods to get rid of prostate cancer:

Waiting method

Prostate cancer occurs gradually and very slowly. Men over 40, who are already chronically ill with something and are under the supervision of a doctor, have the opportunity to recognize its manifestations in the bud - and destroy them. If you often use the services of a doctor, check your prostate regularly and you are guaranteed to get rid of severe forms diseases.

Complete removal

This type radical treatment called prostatectomy. The entire prostate gland plus some tissue around it is removed. The operation is performed if the cancer has not yet managed to “go” far beyond the prostate.

Prostatectomy can be done using either open surgery, making cuts, and in a closed way. It's called laparoscopic. Without cutting the skin, a mechanical manipulator or long surgical instruments, which remove the gland.

Transurethral resection

A special instrument is inserted through the urethra to remove part of the prostate. It is done, naturally, under anesthesia - local or spinal, when the entire Bottom part torso.

Irradiation

Radiotherapy kills cancer cells using special radiation. It is used if the tumor is still small or has slightly affected the tissue near the prostate. Open and closed irradiation methods are used. The latter is called brachytherapy: an implant is inserted into the patient, which is a source of radiation. This allows you to irradiate the affected area, almost without affecting healthy areas.

Cryosurgery

The affected areas of the prostate are frozen and thawed several times, after which the cancer cells die. The freezer is inserted through the perineum with a minimal incision. The operation is performed under general or epidural anesthesia (through the spinal cord).

Hormone therapy

It is also called androgen blockade. The patient's level is artificially lowered male hormones, which stimulate the prostate to grow. Accordingly, cancer cells also slow down their division. However, this method of treatment, as a rule, accompanies other, more radical ones.

Chemotherapy

Medicines that kill cancer cells are administered intravenously or simply drunk with water. This method is good because it “hits” not only prostate cancer, but also destroys metastases, since the medicine enters the blood and spreads throughout the body.

It should be said that the above methods are rarely used one at a time - they are mainly carried out in combination. And at the same time they prescribe painkillers.

Prevention

Diet will help prevent prostate cancer correct image life, as well as the help of doctors.

Diet

Avoid fatty foods, especially saturated fats - those that remain solid at room temperature. This is butter, margarine, hard cheese, white fat on meat and even chicken skin.

Limit red meat and industrially processed meat products - sausages, sausages, etc.

Less alcohol - no more than two drinks per day. One serving means 0.3 beer, 100 grams of wine or 40 grams of strong alcoholic beverage.

More fruits, vegetables and whole grains

More foods rich in lycopene: tomatoes, pink grapefruit and watermelon. Lycopene prevents DNA damage that causes cancer

Broccoli, cauliflower and other cruciferous vegetables are serious enemies of cancer

Soy products, legumes, pomegranate juice And green tea are also considered “killers” of cancer in the embryo, but this has not yet been sufficiently confirmed by science

Vitamin E or selenium may reduce the risk of prostate cancer, but it is suspected that excessive doses these antioxidants can do exactly the opposite

Consume more omega-3 fatty acids- There are a lot of them in fish and nuts.

Lifestyle

More movement. Not a day without aerobics or at least exercise

Reset excess weight. It has been proven that cancer occurs more often in obese people

More ejaculations. Scientists say that 20 ejaculations per month reduce the risk of getting sick. If you can't have sex, practice masturbation. However, if this is too much for you, choose your own regime. After all, sexual excesses are also a test for the prostate.

Medicine

Doctors often prescribe medications that are taken in courses. Some of them slightly reduce the level of male hormones, which interferes with the growth of prostate cells. True, such drugs suppress a man’s sexual functions, but it’s up to you to decide.

At the end of March last year, my lymph nodes became inflamed and could be felt under my armpit. They're so big. They lasted a long time, but I didn’t panic, it was just some kind of inflammation. As doctors later said, it turned out that the disease began much earlier.

Gradually, I began to feel that I was getting tired much faster, running out of steam, and waking up in a cold sweat. I thought it was just overwork. And in May I already had surgery - I needed to have my arm operated on. I broke it a long time ago, they inserted a prosthesis there. But then some problems started, the arm would not straighten.

The evening before the operation, I suddenly feel pain in my neck - I touch it, and there are very large nodes there. At this point I started to panic a little. After the operation, it took me a long time to come to my senses and develop my arm—another weeks or months passed, I don’t know exactly. And then one evening there’s another bump in another place. Then I got scared and already go on the Internet, read all kinds of horror stories. I was about to go to bed to die, that’s all. She made an appointment at the hospital for an ultrasound of all lymph nodes.

Photo: Alexey Abanin

It turned out that there is a lot inside me inflamed lymph nodes. And the uzist suspects me of cancer, sending me to a hematologist. She sent me urgently to a surgeon to operate. They cut out several lymph nodes under my arm. They practically did everything for profit, they only injected a little [painkiller]. All dull pain I felt all the burning and smells. I screamed so much that the surgeon turned on Vivaldi on his phone. The tiles, the huge room, play with the echo of Vivaldi, and I wildly and heart-rendingly scream with good obscenities. Then the surgeon solemnly stitched me up, raised me by the hand and said: “Well, that’s all. Most likely cancer. Get treatment and don’t die, everything will be fine.” Like most people, I have heard the word “death” and not the word “cancer.”

“Well, now we need to wait a few days for the analysis and we will definitely make a diagnosis. For now, go home,” the doctor said, solemnly handed over the lymph nodes in a box and asked to take them to some office. For ten days I sat at home and went crazy, prepared to die, thought about cremation. When the doctor told me all this, I simply did not understand, I screamed: “How can you tell me that I will die?” That's exactly what I heard. I was hysterical and crying. For all ten days I lived in horror, but in rejection - I was 99% sure that everything would be fine. This can't happen to me. Not with me for sure. I tried to distract myself, but I cried every day, could not sleep or eat. Because of this stupid lack of information, these stupid fears. They saved me simply with grass. This was the only thing that could put me to sleep; painkillers did not help with postoperative pain. You're just going crazy. These days were the most terrible of all time.

Then they said that yes, it was cancer of the second, deep stage. And they immediately said that it was not fatal and could be treated with chemotherapy. Then a long epic began with the search for doctors and oncologists, research. Cancer of the lymph nodes, also called Hodgkin's lymphoma - there are a lot of subtypes, it was necessary to research what type, level, a lot of everything. Later they enlightened my entire body to understand where the cancer was located, and it turned out that my body was almost like that of a baby. Almost everyone is healthy. I think that because of that operation with the arm, when they inserted a prosthesis, the immune system was greatly reduced when they infused it for a long time different liquids. They extinguished the immune system so that the prosthesis, the metal in the hand, would take root. Then it turned out that the prosthesis was initially placed incorrectly, and for three years the prosthesis was hanging loose. During this time, he caused so much trouble in his arm that the immune system went crazy.

I stopped at the 62nd [Moscow City Oncology] Hospital in Istra. There they offered me an accelerated course - not six months, but two months - and several radiation procedures. I was in a hurry to go to the theater, to the stage. It was just summer. In September it was necessary to return to duty. A accelerated treatment- it is very tough. Severe poisoning of the body. I went for it. I lay down there and they infused me with chemistry. I should have been sick all night and had a fever, but I was so afraid of it that I told my brain that I wouldn’t stay in the hospital, that I would be active, that I wouldn’t interrupt my work—the filming was planned. The next morning the doctors came in and were simply stunned to see me lively. And I just ran away and went home. From then on, I just started coming myself and injecting chemistry. In parallel, of course, there are a lot of pills and injections. I made them myself, took the syringes and medicine, and injected them myself—either in the stomach or in the leg. And so I drove to the hospital myself, got in, and left. That's all treatment.

The chemistry was cumulative, gradually it got worse and worse. And every day the body threw something away. You're walking down the street and suddenly your legs give out. There’s something wrong with the teeth, then there’s trouble with vision, then there’s trouble with hearing. Both day and night I constantly feel sick. You feel pregnant. During my first chemo courses, I could only eat cold beetroot soup. I didn’t eat anything else at all, I was shaking. Then the hair fell out, and, of course, I had to shave it all off. The hair remained in clumps in his hands. This was really scary. I held on until the last - I was sure that I would not go bald. One day my mother and I were walking, and then she saw that her hair was just falling and falling on her shoulders, she didn’t even need to touch it. In the morning we left the house, and in the late afternoon, around five o’clock, I already had massive bald patches. We went to my friend’s house, she took the clipper in her hands and started shaving herself. My hands shook, tears rolled down in a hail - I look at myself in the mirror like this and see only fear, horror and ugliness. I couldn’t even go out to my mother, I was afraid that she would say that I was a freak. But everyone immediately said that I was beautiful, this was absolutely my style, all that. Of course, I didn’t believe it. My eyebrows and eyelashes also fell out.

And getting weaker and weaker and weaker. But I continued to act and play in plays. Physically it was very difficult. I even went on tour, filming began. And it was only during the last course of chemotherapy in August that my body could no longer stand it. I just collapsed and lay there for a week. I just couldn’t walk, get up, or sleep. The most unpleasant thing is withdrawal. The whole body aches, bones, skull, teeth. I called myself a drug addict, bedridden and trying to get off the needle. I'm terribly thin, just a skeleton. Friends helped, stuffed food into me.

And then, after a short period of rest, the theater began. And the radiation began: every day for three weeks. And more droppers, injections, pills. She came by car to the hospital in Istra, and in the evening she played in plays.

Photo: Alexey Abanin

Everyone around me says that I am a superman, so the treatment is impossible to tolerate: “So thin, small. No one is working, no one is running around, they are staying at home and getting treatment.” And I ran, tried not to cancel anything: I worked out my arm, swam in the pool, worked out in the gym, stretching, sports. It was hard, but the main thing was not to interrupt. Apparently this accumulative thing has caught up with me. When the main treatment ended, I got very sick again. This is the second month I’m just starting to come to my senses and eat up. I lost even more weight.

At the very beginning of treatment, everyone is assigned a psychotherapist, but I immediately refused: I’m strong, I can handle it. But then I realized that I couldn’t cope. What I blocked on purpose caught up with me. Raging poisoning, operations, stress and work - it took its toll. I went to a psychotherapist and demanded strong drugs.

There were some very scary emotional things that I simply had no control over. I didn't understand what was happening to me, panic attacks, scary nervous breakdowns, hysterics. I couldn’t explain why I was crying now, why I was inadequate. It felt like everything hurt. I remember, even during radiation, I ran up the stairs and shouted: “I’ll end up in a fool.” It’s good that there was always someone nearby: they brought us back by force. Now I understand that this is the most important thing with cancer. It's not about support - you just often don't realize it.

This continues to this day, but not to the same extent, of course. We are working with a doctor and are taking sedatives. And the body is still weak, physically and emotionally difficult.

On February 14, I will have a follow-up CT scan [computed tomography - approx. Rain]. And then they’ll say that [the cancer] is in remission or who knows what else. I am convinced that everything is fine, but there is fear. In any case, you will need to recover a lot, a lot. Not even a year, the body is poisoned. And this is even for me more difficult to treat. Either the nails fall off, or the eyelashes fall out for the second time. This could last another four to five years.

I realized that the main thing in this disease is to know that you are not weak. Then I started on Instagram to sign photos with the hashtag #sickisntweak. And even earlier I used the hashtag #actress seagull, and now I write #baldactress seagull.

I proved to myself that cancer doesn’t mean just falling over and lying there. Yes, I was lucky that I didn't have advanced stage, I'm lucky. It’s still hard physically, but our brain is stronger than anything else.

Alexander Gorokhov, journalist at Mediazona, 29 years old

At the beginning of 2016, I thought something was wrong. Month after month went by, I worked. But something in the body became different from before, strange. Working around the clock, nothing but it and drinking - that’s all that interested me. And one summer - it was June - I went to bed, and it started to hurt wildly down there. My eyes just pop out of my head. I lie down on the bed and shout to my neighbor to call an ambulance. I was taken to the hospital, and I am getting more and more sick. It turned out that there was torsion of the testicular cord. He was just f*cked up. There’s a doctor standing there, a surgeon, and me, screaming at two floors. And he says: “You know, go for an ultrasound anyway. And a second time, because there’s something wrong there.” And my aunt was so nasty, she didn’t want to do an ultrasound. The doctor has already taken this thing, done everything and says: “You have a tumor there and, most likely, cancer.” Benign or malignant - it was not clear.

Then I couldn’t straighten up for three days. I spent two nights in the hospital. On the second night they brought in my grandfather, who had incontinence. I wake up and feel like it stinks. I tell the nurses:

- Grandfather shit himself there.

- I will not go.

- What should I do?

I wandered around this floor, tried to sleep on a banquette, on a chair, but everything still hurt. Somehow I fell asleep on the small sofa. How I survived until the morning - I don’t know. But then they took me to the oncology clinic. And then I don’t remember very well. It was a kaleidoscope: pain, tests, waiting for results. A few days later they finally said it was cancer. But the stage is unclear. I waited a week at home. And then they told me: “You come for the operation.” After all, the extent could only be determined by cutting out the tumor. I arrived, lay there for a long time, getting ready for the operation. They told me to shave everything from my neck to my knees, but this is a so-so event. I pressured my friends to buy me this Veet cream. How long did I have to stand in the shower to shave it all off? But the cream saved me.

Photo: Alexey Abanin

I was operated on abdominal surgery. It was a very funny feeling - my fingertips were thawing, and then I realized that my toes were frozen in a different position, and I couldn’t correct them. I asked my mother to fix them reverse side. This was terribly important in those moments. Then they sent me home after some time. There were two disgusting things: it hurt a lot when I sneezed and when they made me laugh. Extreme pain. More time passed and tests were carried out. And in the end they said that I have stage IS, testicular cancer. This is not the first, but not yet the second stage.

“We will perform another operation on you; we will need to remove some of the lymph nodes,” they said at the hospital. The tumor has grown into circulatory system, metastases could go anywhere.

I waited a long time for the operation. Excruciating. They performed a second operation and told me to go to chemotherapy. OK then. I could have refused, but I was told that in three years, most likely, there will be something not very good, “so go.” I was in bed for a week with a catheter in place. I went to bed at four in the morning, the doctors came at seven and started infusions. I woke up at about 11 o'clock because I was torn and wanted to go to the toilet. During these four hours, 3.5 liters of liquid were infused. This went on for a week, they kept giving me drops. On Sunday I was released, and it was the day of the presentation of the Moloko Plus magazine. I felt kind of normal, I asked my mom to take me to the presentation, I wanted to go out into people. All was good.

The next day I woke up completely exhausted. This lasted for almost a month and a half. The most bad time day - as soon as you woke up. You won’t fall asleep for sure for another 12 hours, but you can’t do anything at all. You look at your phone, answer a couple of messages, put the phone down. That's all I have the strength to do. You can't even lie down, you feel so bad. It doesn't hurt - it doesn't hurt at all. I walked 20 minutes along the wall to the toilet. You don’t want to eat, and you can’t. The only thing is that I can’t say that I felt very sick. Along with the chemistry, they gave me some kind of drug that seemed to help. Many people usually have big problems with this. People are sick around the clock. Physical pain- it is unpleasant. It hurts, but it's tolerable. But this is just survival. Every day you think when will this all end. Then it went away, but my hair began to fall out. They were just lying on the pillow. I went and shaved my whole body. This is probably where the story ends.

I get tested every three months because the risk of relapse is high. And this is 15 thousand each time. When I go one of these days, they’ll say something.

I don't feel like anything is going wrong. And every time you think, what if it happens again. I'm not particularly worried. Even when they told me there would be cancer. Well, ok, it's cancer, what should we do now? I wasn’t scared, I wasn’t nervous, I wasn’t worried. In this regard, it was quite easy for me. Of course, this has to do with my character. Few things scare me. Well, it’s a fatal disease, well, I’m going to die, what should I do now, we’re all mortals. Moreover, I wrote my thesis on euthanasia. So I posted great post on Facebook about the disease. First of all, there is nothing to hide. Secondly, I somehow wanted people to know that they don’t need to withdraw into themselves, attitude is super important. I felt that something was wrong with this disease in Russia. If you look at the States, there it’s just a disease, they don’t attach any importance to it of great importance. If I don’t worry, then everyone else shouldn’t worry either.

I thought for a long time about what I could do to express it all. And in July 2017 I made a poster.

Photo: Alexander Gorokhov

The idea dragged on for many months: from the end of 2016 until the summer. I pasted it at the Sosna i Lipa bar and at Winzavod. And I was amazed - there were so many photos on Instagram, many people wrote “cool”. For street art it took a very long time to hang - several months. There will be several more projects on this matter. I really want to say: guys, don’t despair. No need to worry. It may be very difficult for you, you will need to prolong the chemistry, you will turn into mush and it will be difficult. The issue of survival during treatment is complex. But you know why you are doing this. No one chose this, you just got lucky in the heavenly lottery.

Ulyana Shkatova, psychologist, artist, 30 years old

It was 2014. Everything was fine: we worked, walked, dreamed. I decided to remove the mole - for a reason, of course, I had it for several years, it was changing, growing. I knew that moles were such a dangerous thing, but I had never removed them before. It was small, five millimeters, convex, changed color - I could really feel it on my body. On the shin, down on the leg. I knew that moles shouldn’t be burned out, so I went to an oncologist at a general hospital. He looked and said that she was absolutely normal. “If you want, let’s delete it.”

If we analyze what happened, I don’t blame this doctor for anything, but the downside was that he didn’t scare me that the mole could be malignant. “It’s normal, it looks good, if you want it, we’ll remove it, if you don’t want it, we won’t.” I came to him only a few months later. He removed it surgically under local anesthesia and sent it for histology. A few weeks later I received the result that everything was normal - the mole was benign. This story completely let me go, and I didn’t think about it.

Photo: Alexey Abanin

Almost a year passed, and in this place (there was a small scar) a lump the size of half a pea formed under the skin. I didn’t attach any importance to this, but went to the oncologist again. “No problem, let’s cut it out again just in case and send it for histology.” As he left the operating room, he told me to come into the office with him. He was very tense and scared: “It didn’t look like inflammation, it was some kind of formation. We have to wait for the result."

I decided not to read the Internet and do nothing, because as soon as you read it, you’ll immediately find it all at home. Mom received the results by email. I was at home, lying in bed, I had bronchitis. Nine in the morning - I wanted to call the doctor, but didn’t have time. Mom came to me and knocked on the door. I was very surprised why she came. We didn't agree.

- Here is the result. You have melanoma.

- And what is it?

- Malignant tumor.

I hardly remember that moment and what happened to me.

When they tell you the results, you don't realize how much the disease has spread. The first days are the most terrible. First, the unknown: what is it anyway? You know that people die from cancer, that’s all. I also had bronchitis and fever. I felt so bad, I cried and thought that I would never get out of bed again. This is inevitable, you just have to survive this stage.

I had surgery. They take the place where there is a tumor and cut out a larger place. And six months later, a new lump formed in the same place. And this continued every six months. Each time the operation was performed, more was cut out. At some point there was nothing left to stitch there, so they did a skin graft. They took skin from my hand and transplanted it there. They stitched it again, cut it again, the stitches came apart again, operations again - there was nothing left to heal.

Photo: Alexey Abanin

All this time I was treated different ways. I have a rather stupid diagnosis in terms of treatment - standard chemotherapy does not work. I don't mind at all. Yes, this is a tough method, but at least, he heals. Chemistry does not work on melanoma. At first I was prescribed one medicine, I injected it for six months. His condition was terrible - his body ached, his head ached, he had a fever every day. But it didn't work. Within the framework of the Research Institute of Oncology named after. N.N. Petrova] in St. Petersburg began experimental treatment. I donated 16 tubes of blood from a vein and individual vaccines were made from them. I was treated with them for a whole year.

They didn’t tell anyone about the illness, I continued to work in my condition. I didn’t want pity, but there was hope that it would all end. Especially the second stage. This continued until the spring of 2017.

It was Saturday, the end of March. Morning, I had breakfast and scratched my back (behind my left shoulder). And I feel like there is a lump under the skin. I went to the hospital for an ultrasound and they said it looked like metastasis from melanoma. Since the place is remote, the opposite side of the body, they immediately put the fourth stage. And this is already a very expensive treatment.

There is no money, so I started looking for options on how to get medicine. They are new, recently invented, and still being tested around the world. And they just registered it a year ago, not all doctors in Russia even know how to treat it. I was searching for best options what to do to stop the disease. There are few medications for melanoma - you can count them on one hand. I consulted with the best doctors and realized that I needed a medicine that costs 4.5 million per year. The amounts are of course cosmic!

There was no money, so we decided to try clinical trials. There’s not much time, we need to decide something urgently, the fourth stage is no joke. We studied all the options for a very long time on a special website - in the end we were given two thousand tests. It took a long time to translate and understand them. They wrote to everyone who approached - and everyone refused. There is one last test left - in Germany. I waited a long time for an answer, but in the end they said: “Come.” We literally applied for an urgent visa in a day, packed our things, booked everything we could, and flew with my husband Sasha. I took a risk, there was no other option. I spent a day in the hospital and signed a consent form with them. She fit all the parameters - she was incredibly happy. “To definitely be included in the trial, you need to review your histology, you need to take blood and check everything again,” the doctors said. I went through all the examinations, and the day came when I was supposed to be given this medicine for the first time. It was the most terrible day of my life.

Photo: Alexey Abanin

I came to the hospital. We waited for a long time and then entered the office. The doctor said: “You have new metastases in the lungs, and you are no longer suitable with them.” Not only was I not accepted for the only test, but it also turned out that the disease had spread to my vitals. important organs. "Sorry goodbye". All the last money was given to Germany. Just zeros. And they were left with nothing.

There were no more options other than asking people for money. It was the beginning of summer. I was prepared - I did it

Maxim Nagorny is 37 years old. He learned that he had lung cancer two years ago. Maxim is a fan of outdoor activities. Due to illness, he was prohibited from long hiking trips and his favorite cycling routes. In the free time, he began to collect unusual things from wood and improvised means - cameras, rotary phones.

Maxim told Profilaktika.Media about the word “oncological”, inaccessible medicine in Russia and a new attitude to life after diagnosis.

I was born in Penza. When I was one year old, my parents moved to Perm, where they still live. Dad worked as a foreman at a fan factory, mother graduated from the preschool faculty, worked as a methodologist in kindergartens, and as a specialist in the Ministry of Education. She is now retired, but cannot imagine her life without children, so she works as a nanny.

In 2006 I graduated from the Physics Faculty of Perm state university. I work in the IT field. He got married in 2015 and has no children yet.

In November 2015, during a routine fluorography, I was diagnosed with darkening chest. After this, long trips to doctors began. After hospitalization and a biopsy in April 2016, a tumor near the left lung was removed. After reviewing the glass blocks, a diagnosis of mediastinal tratoma, a benign formation, was made.

When a control CT scan was done in July 2016, they found multiple shadows on the surface of the left lung. Consultations have begun again thoracic surgeons and oncologists. The process was slow.

As a result, in September 2016, a biopsy was done again and the glass blocks were revised. And after this, the final diagnosis was made - “bilateral disseminated large cell lung carcinoma T4NxM1.” Simply put, stage four lung cancer or stage four squamous cell large cell lung cancer.

In October 2016, chemotherapy began at the Perm Oncology Center, with a total of eight courses. And on every test computed tomography there was a negative trend. Each time the doctors said something like: “Well, everything is individual. Let’s try treatment with a different protocol.”

By the eighth course of chemotherapy, I had a strong feeling that this treatment was just for show. This feeling was especially strong when I looked at people who were doing their tenth, fifteenth or twentieth chemo, and they did not have good dynamics.

Speaking of people with: it is important to understand that these were different sequential treatment regimens with different drugs. Chemotherapy is prescribed, then the treatment itself comes. The effect is then assessed. If there is no effect, then the scheme changes. Unfortunately, due to lack of information, patients after several cycles and regimens of “chemotherapy” believe that it “does not help,” forgetting that the regimens and medications have changed.

Yes, with each subsequent regimen - that is, line of therapy - the effectiveness decreases, which is why the most effective drugs in the first lines. But if there is no answer to standard circuits, then perhaps we do not yet know some genetic characteristics of a given tumor (for example, some kind of mutation), which makes it sensitive to the drug that was prescribed in the third or fourth line, and there will be an excellent response! There are many complexities and nuances in the process of drug therapy that are not visible and often not understandable to the patient. This misunderstanding causes denial and hostility. But no one would want to check how long they would live without treatment at all.

Therefore, in parallel, requests were sent to Israeli and Turkish clinics, which suggested that it was possible to be treated with a new modern medicine, active substance pembrolizumab. Realizing that this treatment could be more effective for me and with my diagnosis, and that chemotherapy could “kill” the entire body along with the cancer, I voluntarily refused chemotherapy and decided to switch to pembrolizumab. But in August 2017, this medicine had not yet been registered and was only undergoing clinical trials in Russia. So I had to buy it abroad and install it in private clinic we have. Of course, my condition was monitored - I donated blood every two weeks and had a CT scan. At the same time, the medicine has been used abroad for a long time; it is quite officially used to treat melanoma and lung cancer.

Comment from Katerina Korobeynikova, a resident of the Higher School of Oncology:

Nowadays, everything that chemotherapists do is called “ drug therapy" It includes “classical” chemotherapy - cytostatics, immunotherapy, targeted therapy, biotherapy... But all this treatment is with drugs.

Pembrolizumab, which Maxim is talking about, is a monoclonal antibody, that is, a biotherapy. In the register medicines the following is written about it: “Pembrolizumab is indicated for the treatment of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer patients with confirmed tumor cell expression of PD-L1 and disease progression during or after platinum therapy.” That is, they could not immediately prescribe it, since cytostatics with platinum are more effective in the first line (if the tumor is sensitive to them). Unfortunately, the problem is the lack of some medicines, registered abroad, really exists in Russia, it needs to be addressed.

Help groups were created on social networks, and fundraising began for the purchase of the drug. Of course, personal savings were used, and a lot of things had to be sold to buy medicine. My friends helped me a lot, I couldn’t have done it without them. At that time, all the help I received from strangers, gave me strength and the desire to fight further. These people wrote to me, supported me, and sent me money to buy medicine.

By January 2018, I learned that you can take the drug for free - at the expense of compulsory medical insurance funds. Having received a referral for examinations at the Blokhin Russian Cancer Research Center, I underwent examinations and tests, on the basis of which I was prescribed treatment with pembrolizumab at the Perm Oncology Center.

Now I continue treatment and am waiting for the next course after the control CT scan. By the way, it showed a lack of dynamics compared to the previous study. This is a good result.

What helps you in your daily struggle?

Of course, the support of close relatives and friends is of great importance. The closest and best friends They helped send all the information to foreign clinics so that initial research could be carried out, and they helped a lot with the creation of a collection group.

It helps to communicate with people like me who live with cancer. The name “oncology living” was coined by a new friend of mine who also has cancer. Sometimes I advise something when people contact me, sometimes they advise me what to do in a given situation. And communication with these people gives fuel, strength and confidence that we are on the right way, paths to recovery.

Of course, after everyone around me learned about my diagnosis, many were perplexed and could not believe that this was happening to me. Some said: “You mean sick? Look how happy and joyful he is in the photographs. He can't have cancer." For this reason, someone left my life, and someone came, new interests, new hobbies, new perspectives appeared. I am grateful to both people for everything.

All my life I've been interested in active recreation- rafting, hiking, cycling, parachutes. The most significant for me is the hiking along the route Teplaya Gora - Basegi Nature Reserve - Mount Oslyanka - Kizel. It's 130 km on foot. I remember well the bike ride across Crimea from Dzhankoy to Simferopol through Yalta, Alushta and Sevastopol. When I got sick, the doctors recommended temporarily giving up strong physical activity. Instead, I walked with my wife and friends and regained my strength. This year I began to gradually get on a bike and ride a little.

At some point, he began making decorative elements, lighting and furniture from wood and improvised materials. I use everything - cameras, rotary phones, in general, everything that can be found at flea markets. And this activity makes me happy, distracts me and takes up my free time. I want to dedicate my immediate future to this activity while I recover. In addition, I work at my previous job in free mode. This is a definite plus, because I am doing what I really want to do now, and this helps a lot.

What would you like to change in the healthcare system and cancer screening?

Faced with our medical system, made a not very comforting conclusion for myself: if you are treated for free, get ready for queues, long waits for necessary urgent procedures, and a lack of medications. To get the necessary conclusion or assignment, sometimes it is necessary to fight and seek justice. For example, in the local clinic there was no oncologist for more than a year, and therefore I had to go between a therapist, a paramedic and the head of the department in order to get a referral for tests and a prescription for medications.

But all the problems are in the system, not in people. After all, almost everywhere, in all hospitals and clinics, I communicated with adequate, friendly doctors and nurses. They get into the situation, help as best they can, give advice, look for options for solving some difficult issues. I think that it is precisely because of people like this - responsive, professionals with a capital P - that our medicine stays afloat.

From the moment a darkening is detected on my fluorography to some action (in my case it’s surgical intervention), five months have passed. The second time, three months passed between the CT scan in July and the diagnosis. I think this is a very long time. It is necessary to reduce the time spent traveling between specialists and sitting in queues, because quick diagnosis can save the lives of a huge number of people. And there will be fewer people like me, who may be “by chance” diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

What questions were the most difficult to answer?

When I was told my diagnosis, at first my head was empty. Just empty, there was nothing in it. Gradually, awareness began to dawn, a chill ran down my skin, and I broke into a sweat. Questions rained down: “why”, “what’s next”, “what did I do wrong” and so on, but then I pulled myself together.

The main thing that I understood is that such a disease is not given “for something”, but “for something”, so that a person understands what needs to be changed in himself, in his attitude towards people, towards the life around him.

Of course, it was difficult not to panic and not to look on the Internet, not to look there for answers to questions of interest. Moreover, the panic spread to all my loved ones, everyone was worried, although they pretended that everything was fine. Even now, after a while, I understand that many questions should have been answered in other places. The main problem follows from this - in our country there is a complete lack of initial support for people living with cancer, everyone is like blind kittens, they don’t know what to do, how to act, who to turn to. This is very sad, because at first you need to be very responsible about treatment, nutrition, and lifestyle. Everything changes in the lives of such people.

What did your diagnosis tell you?

I concluded for myself that I love life and want to live. While I had free time in hospitals, I read books on psychology. I realized that life is not as simple as it seemed before, that there is a lot of positive things in our world. And you need to live and nourish your soul with this warmth. There is always something to strive for, something to want, someone to love, someone to give your love to.

Once again I realized that you have to fight for your life, for your health, no one owes you anything. It is necessary to take x-rays of the lungs on time, go to doctors for preventive appointments, and get tested.

What advice could you give to loved ones of patients and people themselves facing cancer?

1. Trust your doctor. If you have a problem, don't panic. You don’t need to immediately go on the Internet and read everything about your illness, this will worsen an already difficult situation. psychological condition. On initial stage It’s better to trust your doctor, but gradually start checking everything yourself. Look for other treatment options, both paid and free. And only after that make a decision on how and where to be treated.

2. Every person living with cancer needs support. We need to support the person, but we shouldn’t forget about loved ones. It’s hard for them too, they also need support, they also suffer both for the person with cancer and for themselves.

Collected collected Interesting Facts about a breakthrough method of treating one of the most terrible diseases.

In order to become cancerous, a cell must accumulate a certain number of mutations in its genes. Some genes must be activated and begin to stimulate division (they are also called oncogenes), while others that suppress cell division (suppressor genes) must be turned off. At the same time, proteins modified by these and subsequent mutations—neoantigens—appear inside the cell. An antigen is a target of immune cells.

Cancer kills millions of people every year, ranking as the second leading cause of death, just behind heart disease.

James Ellison and Tasuku Honjo discovered a way to unblock our immune cells from attacking tumors, since the human immune system most often does not “see” malignant tumors, since cancer cells are cells of our own body. As a result, the necessary defensive reaction does not occur.

Previously, doctors could only fight cancer in three ways - surgery, exposure to ionizing radiation and chemotherapy (special poisons that attack rapidly dividing cells).

The idea that immunity and cancer may be linked was expressed by Nobel laureate 1908 Paul Ehrlich. He suggested that tumor cells can constantly appear in the body, but the immune system blocks their development. Ehrlich's ideas formed the basis of an entire theory of immune surveillance of tumors.

In the 90s, a Japanese immunologist from Kyoto University discovered the PD-1 receptor (immune checkpoint) on the surface of lymphocytes, the activation of which leads to the suppression of their activity. Around the same years, the American Ellison from the Anderson Cancer Center of the University of Texas studied a protein called CTLA-4, which is located on the surface various groups T-lymphocytes (provide recognition and destruction of cells carrying foreign antigens). He and his colleagues noticed that this protein was able to suppress immune reaction. Ellison tried turning off the natural blocker in mice with cancer. Tumor cells could no longer hide from the immune system, and the body fought cancer much more effectively, writes Wired.

If you block CTLA-4, T lymphocytes begin to work much more actively.

In 2001, the first cancer vaccine, ipilimumab, was used to treat melanoma in a woman named Sharon Belvin. After one injection of the drug, her tumors disappeared within six months. Having proven itself well, this drug is now used in the NHS (National Health Service of Great Britain) to treat patients with melanoma. All known methods treatments that were previously used did not have such good results, writes the British BBC agency.

A protein called PD-1, which was discovered by Professor Tasuku Honjo, normally allows regulatory T cells to suppress those killer T cells that are activated by the “wrong” antigen. The fact is that the activation of this protein on lymphocytes (with the help of the ligand PD-1 - PD-L1) sends them into apoptosis - the process of programmed cell death or programmed death.

In studies on mice, Honjo's group showed the effectiveness of blocking the new protein in the fight against various tumors. These data were used to develop a new drug called Nivolumab, which is registered worldwide and is used to treat many types of cancer, including melanoma.

• On March 8 it was reported that scientists Harvard University have developed a personalized vaccine that helps activate immune system to fight cancer.
• On February 1, scientists from Stanford University School of Medicine discovered that T-lymphocyte activation in malignant tumors capable of destroying cancer cells and even fighting distant metastases.