Beating Cancer. An Entrepreneur's Approach

What would you do if you were a successful entrepreneur and you suddenly found out you had cancer?

This happened to a client of mine, and like any resourceful entrepreneur, he didn't just wait to see what would happen. He proactively researched solutions, but impressively, did it in a very creative, entrepreneurial way - by following the money trail.What he found was that small companies with promising cancer treatments would see large stock gains, and he spent his time tracking down exactly what those new treatments were, and where they were being held in clinical trials. He ended up getting a progressive DNA-based treatment that has proven very effective for him.

I found his approach so powerful that I asked him if I could post it to my blog for others, which he agreed to do. Here's what he had to say:

"...these are the best sources in the US I know about:

www.cancer.gov is the website for the National Cancer Center based at NIH in Bethesda. All Clinical Trials aimed at cancer are supposed to be registered here and with the FDA. They are THE clearing house for what is going on in the US. However, they do not record what may be going on elsewhere as far as studies, developments, trials, etc elsewhere in the world. The US Government including the FDA and NCI are tougher on approving procedures, bio-therapies, techniques, surgeries, etc...thus you may find that in places like Germany, Japan, France, Belgium, and Spain..new ideas are more common because there is less regulation by the government,...however if something is working, you can be certain that it will hit the US markets 1st. The NCI sponsors clinical trials that are not just held in Bethesda, but to get a good read on effectiveness, they are often scattered around the country at various hospitals and centers who agree to follow the det ails and terms of the trial to the letter and proved accurate and continuous monitoring and reporting of all sorts of data. That's how these trials learn what works.

www.ASCO.org is the website for the American Society of Clinical Oncologists. These are not the surgeons but rather the cancer doctors who use chemotherapy, bio-therapy, radiation, immunotherapy, genetic therapies and every other treatment shy of surgery. These oncologists hold various seminars around the country for specialized discussion on certain problems or on specific cancers and also hold an annual conference in the US. In anticipation of the conference, during the conference, and immediately after the conference, certain stocks go crazy as results and disclosures of the efforts of this huge group, maybe 40,000 doctors, are released. People watch this website for what is being done, what advances are made and who is making progress. Like many problems, advances are made often in very small or very slow steps, but way more people are living with cancer than dying from it.

www.curetoday.org is an online and published monthly more in lay terms than the ASCO or NCI site. It usually focuses on maybe 10-12 topics a month with incidental news. You can look back in the archives or order back issues to learn what is going on with a particular form or stage of cancer. This is a pretty good way to keep up.

CANCER HOSPITALS-self referral or family and friends can refer to any of these hospitals..you do not need to be friends with the Chairman of Pfizer to be seen.

www.mskcc.org Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center based in Manhattan-Hospital and labs on East 65th through East 70th Street-also tied in with Cornell Medical Center, Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, and Rockefeller University...Outpatient facility at 53rd St. and 3rd Ave. with other facilities in Long Island, Connecticut, out counties in New York, and Norther New Jersey

www.mdanderson.org MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Located in the medical city a section of Houston with 350,000 medical professionals, all kinds of hospitals, clinics, etc. Medical City skyline is bigger than Boston. They do a lot, I mean a real lot for people, an enormous facility. Also has a natural medicine and eastern medicine department which works in conjunction with western medicine. This may very much appeal to your father's friend. As many of our western medicines are derived from the plant, root, and herb world, the combination makes a lot of sense.

www.jwci.org John Wayne Cancer Institute outside of Los Angeles, affiliated with UCLA Medical Center-tops on the west coast, has really well backed departments with all the labs, staff, facilities that any cutting edge group could want..thanks to Hollywood stars. Home of the SWOG or South Western Oncology Group, a school of thought in and of itself which often takes different approaches than people on the east coast.

www.mayoclinic.org in cold Rochester, Minnesota..around for a very very long time, this is the

top center in the midwest. The Cancer Center there is big but shares a lot of research and information with other centers.

www.dana-farber.org Dana-Farber Cancer Center in Boston is affiliated with Mass. General Hospital and Harvard University Medical Center. The top center in the New England area with some very very very smart researchers and doctors.

Also, Medical Centers at the University of Chicago, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Pennsylvania (particularly the Wistar Institute) are doing some very good things, as is Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

There is a huge huge amount of information out there and it is easy to become overwhelmed with what might be the best choice. One thing is certain, no one oncologist anywhere can possibly know about all that might be available and what can be done, as if he or she tried to keep up, they would be unable to see any patients. That's what makes these big Centers so good, there are teams and teams of researchers, teams of clinicians, and teams of specialists to continue ongoing maintenance of what is more and more becoming a manageable illness. Unfortunately the Washington area is growing so fast, that established oncologists simply cannot pull up and re-establish a group practice of experienced oncologists in a growing city-especially when the hospitals around here are by hospital standards very small. The Doctors do their best, patient loads are enormous, and unfortunately, they work with what they know and have used.

It takes a lot of reading and a lot of networking and talking to people to see what might be best, but if you can get a consensus of 2 out of 3 to agree on a path to follow, you have placed him on the right path towards the best possible help. Again with over 300 forms of Cancer

This is my take on things, and as a lay person who has done some reading, I certainly know only very very little, but I really do believe if I did NOT do what these doctors recommended I might not be here today."