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Description of treatments

At the beginning of the treatment we need to take a careful history from you and perform some basic investigations. Then, after discussing any conventional approaches that might have not been considered yet, we will decide in a face-to-face consultation if cell-based immunotherapy alone or in combination with other therapies can be considered for you.

To get a clearer impression of what is involved or to gain more information you are invited to contact the individual practices directly or to call Mrs Bellstedt at our central reception.

The individual treatments can be quite varied from patient to patient, however this information can give you a rough overview of our therapeutic pathway:

  1. Before meeting one of our physicians please enquire:
    • Which previous investigation results should be brought in for the face-to-face consultation to ease taking of your medical history
    • If there are any contraindications which might exclude you from immunotherapy or
    • If delaying the consultation, for instance in case of very low blood counts after chemotherapy, should be considered.
  2. During the initial consultation with one of our physicians we will take your disease history, review any previous investigations and complete these if necessary. Your therapeutic options, possible side effects and the costs of the therapies will be discussed with you.
  3. In addition to this we will need to take blood for a complete infectious disease screen (HIV, Hepatitis B and C). Even if you had these tests done before we are legally required to take a sample and have it analyzed in a laboratory that is accredited by our regulating authorities.
  4. We will also perform a full blood count with differential to ascertain if there are sufficient numbers of monocytes in your blood.
  5. If obtaining the cells is an option in principle we need to discuss weather to achieve this by leukapheresis or conventional blood taking. During conventional blood taking we will take about 120 – 200 ml of blood to extract the cells from. During leukapheresis, which takes about 3-4 hours, we will only collect a certain part of your blood (white bloods cells) while the rest will be re-injected into your blood stream. Hereby we can obtain cells for several vaccines and the loss of other components of the blood is reduced. Which method is most suitable for you depends on your preference and the results of your blood count.
  6. After obtaining the monocytes they will be cultured in the laboratory according to different protocols to grow them into dendritic cells or telerogenic or regenerative macrophages. Depending on the exact protocol patients will receive their own cells back after 4-7 days.
  7. Any follow-up consultations at home or with one of our physicians will be explained to you and this will depend on your individual circumstances.