Cancer & HyperbaricTherapy

There are over 100 types of cancer,affecting every organ and tissue in the body.

There were an estimated 1.7 million new cancer diagnoses in the United States in 2019,according to the American Cancer Association. It is the 2nd leading cause of death within the country.

Cancer occurs when abnormal cells divide uncontrollably, often destroying surrounding healthy cells.

This cellular invasion can spread throughout the entire body, no matter where the source of the tumors begin.

As these abnormal cells spread, they can deplete the body of its essential nutrients and resources, oxygen being one.

Cancer

Traditional cancer treatments include surgery to remove tumors (lumps of abnormal cells or tissues that clump together), chemotherapy, and radiation.Chemo and radiation are both designed to poison the cancerous cells that have spread throughout the body. While technology is starting to get to a point where these procedures can be targeted at specific affected tissue, there is still often a lot of collateral damage done to healthy cells and tissues during the process. Most people treated with chemo or radiation suffer extreme symptoms such as weight loss,hair loss, digestive issues, extreme pain,fatigue, immune suppression, immobility,and much more.Unfortunately, a large portion of cancer deaths are related to side effects from the treatments.

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy has gained traction as an adjunctive modality in the treatment and symptom management of cancer. Cancerous cells tend to be anaerobic, meaning they thrive in oxygen-poor environments. Research is showing that flooding cancer cells with oxygen can make them easier to kill with chemo or radiation. Some experts also believe that the pressure of hyperbaric therapy can help push chemo through the body faster, leaving less time for healthy tissue to be poisoned. There are many published studies showing hyperbaric therapy's ability to heal post-radiation damage inside the burned tissues and organs as well. Anecdotally, many patients report that their time in the chamber helps relieve pain, increase appetite, and boosts energylevels.

Oxygen-dependent regulation of tumor growth and metastasis in human breast cancer xenografts

Kristine Yttersian Sletta, Maria K Tveitarås, Ning Lu, Agnete S T Engelsen, Rolf K Reed,Annette Garmann-Johnsen, Linda Stuhr Published Aug 2017

Background: Tumor hypoxia is relevant for tumor growth, metabolism, resistance to chemotherapy and metastasis. We have previously shown that hyperoxia, using hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBOT), attenuates tumor growth and shifts the phenotype from mesenchymal to epithelial (MET) in the DMBA-induced mammary tumor model. This study describes the effect of HBOT on tumor growth, angiogenesis,chemotherapy efficacy and metastasis in a triple negative MDA-MB-231 breast cancer model, and evaluates tumor growth using a triple positive BT-474 breast cancer model.

Conclusion: Despite the fact that behavior and prognosis of the triple positive and negative subtypes of cancer are different, the HBOT had a similar suppressive effect on tumor growth,indicating that they share a common oxygen dependent anti-tumor mechanism.Furthermore,HBOT significantly reduced the number and area of metastatic lesions in the triple negative model as well as a significant reduction in the EMT markers N-cadherin, Axl and density of collagen type I.