 |
|
|
Frequently Asked DCA Questions Question: I cannot find sodium dichloroacetate. Can I use dichloroacetic acid instead? Question: What makes Industrial Grade sodium dichloroacetate a concern? Question: I am very excited about DCA and all the preliminary information which has been released so far by the Canadian scientists who made this awesome discovery. Do you know if and when clinical trials are starting? I am stage IV cancer, and I want to sign up for a trial, since so far all the chemos and vaccines they have tried on me continue to fail and my tumors keep growing. (Boston, MA) Answer posted by “Jay. C.”: We have been in touch with one of the two Canadian discoverers of DCA this week, 2/5/07, (Dr. Archer) and he tells us that Dr. Michelakis (the second discoverer), is preparing to start clinical trials at the Cancer Centre of Northern Alberta. It will be a blind trial, meaning that you will be placed in one of two groups (one of which will get the DCA and the other won't). We haven't been given a specific date of trial start yet, but as soon as we at the DCA site are informed, we'll publish that date and any other information we get from the trial organizers. Question: My mother-in-law has cancer and they have tried her on chemo, radiation, surgery, and her cancer is still advancing. Is there anything she can do now with her oncologist or personal physician, to get this DCA? I don't think she can afford to wait for some institution or non-pharmaceutical agency to start trials. (from Casey M. in Fairfield, CA) Answer posted by Jay. C.: There may be a way to approach your oncologist or personal physician in a way that he would prescribe DCA to you. Here's how in two easy steps: 1.) Download all the pages from this DCA site and give him/her copies. This will give your doctor/onc adequate technical information about DCA. 2.) Give the doc a few days to digest the information, then make an appointment to confer. Make your point about the fact that DCA has already been (safely) used on humans to treat mitochondrial/metabolic malfunctions and, considering that cancer is a mitochondrial malfunction, he/she should be able to prescribe DCA to you as on "off-label" drug. The FDA allows medical doctors to prescribe drugs that have been used for one disease, to use against a different disease, if the physician feels that it is prudent and has a chance of working. The worst that can happen is that you take it for four weeks and see no results. The best that can happen is that your cancer will react the same way the cancer tumors reacted to DCA in mice. The tumors will shrink to one third their size in one week and then will continue to shrink until they disappear. DCA can then be stopped and then, in the future, if tumors come back, one can start on the DCA again-long enough to kill the new tumors. If tumors, never reappear, then all the better !!! Question: Is DCA toxic? (from Kimberly in Methuen, MA) Answer posted by Jay C. Researchers at the University of Alberta have reported that DCA is relatively non-toxic, since it has already been used as a medicine on adults and children to treat metabolic disease, and for hypertension. It has been known to have some mild side effects in a minority of patients and they include a change in gait, some nerve problems, but both of these symptoms appear to be reversible upon cessation of DCA. This is certainly in positive contract to most of the poisons being administered today as "chemo", including IL-2 (requires on week in ICU, Interferon, and DTIC. Question: I am curious as to whether DCA is effective against all types of cancer, including rare types of cancer like ENB, short for esthesioneuroblastoma. My mother has this type of cancer and so far radical surgery followed by harsh treatments of radiation has not stopped the growth of this tumor, which is located in her sinus and eye orbit, and extends back to the brain. Now we are looking at chemo and more surgery, so her outlook is not good.(From Mike T.) Answer posted by Jim T.: DCA was tested, in the published paper, against three types of human cancers: non-small-cell lung cancer, glioblastoma, and breast cancer. Nothing has published about the effectiveness against other types of cancers. Question: Has there been any testing in cats? Mine has lymphoma (Kathy M.) Answer posted by Jim T: Not in actual clinical trials. Individuals have used DCA against lymphomas in humans, cats and ferrets. Lymphomas seem to respond well to DCA.. Question: What is the molecular mass of sodium dichloroacetate? How much sodium is in it? Answer: Molecular mass of Sodium DCA is about 151. The mass of sodium is about 23. Sodium makes up about 15 1/4 % of the sodium DCA. Question: Are there any clinics that offer DCA therapy? Answer: Yes. (let us know of others please) Question: There is caution against combining DCA and caffeine with patients with brain cancer. Is this caution the same with patients with lung cancer that has spread to the brain? Question: Answer:
|
|
