Spontaneous remission of cancer in general:
Spontaneous remission of cancer is defined as
" ... the remission of cancer without any treatment, or with treatment that would not be expected to cause a tumor to decrease as much as it does." (From Bing)
Spontaneous remission of cancer may be partial or complete, and may be temporary or permanent.
From first link below:
"Though we have clearly documented cases of spontaneous regression, it's hard to know how common this phenomenon actually is ... (although) a 2008 prospective study suggested that spontaneous remission is much more common than we think ... (and) it's possible for early invasive cancers to occur and go away before a diagnosis can even be made. That said, spontaneous remission may be more common than we think."
"Researchers are not entirely sure of the molecular basis behind spontaneous regression of cancer ... That said, an immunologic basis could certainly make sense."
"It's unclear what triggers this phenomena. However, many reports have linked spontaneous remission to certain types of infection or hormonal changes."
"Looking at people who have had a spontaneous remission of their cancers, it's quickly noted that most of these regressions are associated with an acute infection. Infections often result in a fever and stimulation of the immune system ... Infections that have been associated with spontaneous remission include diphtheria, measles, hepatitis, gonorrhea, malaria, smallpox, syphilis, and tuberculosis." (Emphasis in next paragraph is mine)
"Some cases of spontaneous remission may be triggered by hormonal changes. This type of remission has been linked to certain types of cancer, including breast and prostate cancer ... There has also been a report about a person who experienced complete natural remission of her endometrial and ovarian cancers following pregnancy and childbirth. Researchers think this may have been related to the high levels of progesterone occurring during pregnancy."
"In the past, people who survived cancer despite the odds being against them were often dismissed as being an anomaly or an exception. Medicine has now acknowledged that these outliers should be closely examined rather than dismissed."
"The cause of this rare phenomena is not entirely understood, though it has been linked to an immune response to infection, as well as hormonal changes."From
"Spontaneous Remission of Cancer Incidence and Causes"
https://www.verywellhealth.com/spontaneous-remission-of-lung-cancer-a-rare-miracle-3971875#:~:text=some%20types%20of%20tumors%20have%20a%20higher%20rate,been%20reported%20in%20breast%20cancer%20and%20lung%20cancer.+----+*--*and more, from the link below:
" ... overall, just one in 100,000 cancer patients are thought to shed the disease without treatment."
"Coley found that deliberately infecting them (cancer patients) with bacteria, or treating them with toxins harvested from microbes, destroyed otherwise inoperable tumours."
" ... study found that 90% of the patients recovering from leukemia had suffered another illness such as pneumonia shortly before the cancer disappeared. Other papers have noted tumours vanishing after diphtheria, gonorrhoea, hepatitis, influenza, malaria, measles, smallpox and syphilis."
"Dengue fever crashes and regroups the immune system, so that it is reset to kill tumour cells ... Infecting vulnerable patients with a tropical illness may sound foolhardy, but dengue fever is less likely to kill the average adult than the common cold – making it the safest choice of infection. Importantly, once the fever has subsided, the programmed immune cells will remain on the lookout for the tumour, should it reappear."
"Spontaneous remission is a little clue in a big complicated jigsaw.” But if – and that is a massive if – they succeed, the implications would be staggering. A rapid, relatively painless recovery from cancer is now considered a miracle. The dream is that it might just become the norm."From
"Cancer: The Mysterious Miracle Cases Inspiring Doctors"
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150306-the-mystery-of-vanishing-cancerUnfortunately, despite searching, l found very little reference to occurrence of spontaneous remission in cases of PCa, other than occasional passing mentions, such as the one above.
And when I consulted my go-to AI, Copilot, the exchange went:
Q: describe cases of spontaneous remission in prostate cancer
A: Certainly! Spontaneous remission in prostate cancer refers to cases where the disease unexpectedly improves or disappears without any specific treatment. Here are some key points:
Remission and Recurrence:
After being treated for prostate cancer, the disease often goes into remission, and patients may be cancer-free for a period of time.
However, remission can be short-lived, and there is a possibility of prostate cancer recurrence.
Factors Influencing Spontaneous Remission:
While spontaneous remission is rare in prostate cancer, some factors may contribute to it:
Hormone Changes: Breast and prostate cancers may go into remission when hormone levels change.
Removal of Cancer-Causing Substances: Eliminating cancer-promoting substances from the environment may lead to regression.
Tumor Microenvironment: Metalloproteinase inhibitors and anti-angiogenesis factors in the tumor microenvironment may play a role in remission.
Rare Cases:
Spontaneous remission of prostate cancer is not commonly reported, but it has been observed in other cancers such as neuroblastoma, renal cell carcinoma, malignant melanoma, and lymphoma.
Remember that individual cases can vary, and it’s essential for patients to work closely with their healthcare providers to determine the best treatment approach based on their specific situation. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask!Otherwise, just a handful of references across the web to spontaneous remission of PCa, likely a reflection of the fact that the phenomenon is, unfortunately, rare, and not as studied (so far at least) to a degree that is helpful.
Or perhaps it's because, as a source above suggested, it's really pretty common, but comes and goes so quickly, that when it is so early in the process, it's difficult for current detection means to catch it.
But if progress can actually be made in this area, and the process refined and controlled, perhaps some day it may become standard practice to be given an intentional injection of dengue fever virus, or such, and we lay up for a few days waiting for it to get over with.
Then maybe we have had PCa immunity conferred upon us.
"Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease caused by dengue virus, prevalent in tropical and subtropical areas. It is frequently asymptomatic; if symptoms appear they typically begin 3 to 14 days after infection. These may include a high fever, headache, vomiting, muscle and joint pains, and a characteristic skin itching and skin rash. Recovery generally takes two to seven days. In a small proportion of cases (about 5%), the disease develops into severe dengue (previously known as dengue hemorrhagic fever or dengue shock syndrome)" -- Wikipedia.
Or is a potential 5% mortality rate really too high for this kind of treatment to be taken seriously?
Or, preferably, some day the process is better understood to the degree that enduring a case of dengue fever is unnecessary, as the elements of that disease that confer immunity have been isolated, and a mere injection of these operative elements is all that will be needed, with no need for days in bed with a case of a proven protective illness on the part of the patient.
So sort of mixed messages here. One the one hand, only 1/100,000 occurrence (maybe), (no, not encouraging, but read on), but maybe much more common than that due to its everyday occurrence below the detectability threshhold.
So maybe the whole thing comes down to some disease we may contract doing a "jump start," not unlike a power source and jumper cables jump starting a dead battery, on a person's immune system, "energizing" it to get moving on taking on and taking out an invading cancer virus. Such as PCa.
But even if spontaneous remission is something that will turn out to be of limited long-range value, it's arguably still something to at least be aware of, and, who knows, perhaps at some future time it may be revisited, and found to be of greater importance than originally thought.
And for us as individuals, could this mean that coming down with a nasty cold at some point might mean that our immune systems are getting a kind of "bonus recharging" from said cold, to the benefit of our bodies' anti-cancer efforts?
Who knows? Maybe, maybe not.
But it would be nice to think that through all the sniffling and nose-blowing, our immune systems may be getting a boost in taking on the beast.