I'm going to Tennessee to see Dr. Cantrell 1st wk of Dec

Hi Everyone,

Well, I went ahead and called Neoplas Innovations, which is Dr. Stephen Cantrell's clinic in Nashville, TN. I asked more questions and ended up actually setting up an initial consultation with him. I set it up for Dec. 4-5 since I am getting my next scan that prior week and so I'll have all the latest updates on myself with me at that time.

Many of Dr. Cantrell's patients are people who have been told there's nothing else that can be done, but some of his patients are also just on their last approved chemo with it not making tumors go away. That's the situation I'm in- my "innumerable subcentimeter lung nodules" just won't go away no matter what & the best my current regimen is doing for them is keeping them stable. Stable is good of course, but I want to see if I have a chance of making them completely go away! I'm not a candidate for radiation, cyberknife, or surgery for what I have in my lungs since there's too many of the nodules in all parts of my lungs.

Now for the financial aspect of going to Neoplas Innovations... the initial consultation is the only thing they ask you to pay for up front. It's a two day deal, two hours each day & I was told the cost will be about $960. I'm not sure how that works if insurance will reimburse you. You will have to plan on making that payment at the time of your consultation. Visits after that they can put you on a delayed payment plan. You go back in for a follow up appt. about 11 weeks after starting their treatment. The actual medications you get can likely be covered by most insurance companies- who knows, maybe insurance will reimburse for it. Maybe that depends upon how "on board" your regular oncologist is with this and if he/she will advocate it for your to your insurance. the say each person is responsible for working things out with insurance companies- they do not work with insurance companies because they do not have the time or resources to do so. You do not have to stay in Nashville for treatments- the lovastatin is in pill form and the interferon is in needle form that they show you how to self inject yourself. Lovastatin is actually a statin- a drug to help with cholesterol, but it has been found to have anticancer qualities as well. It combined with the interferon seems to have a remarkable reaction against cancer cells. Of course, there are no guarantees it will work for everyone, but they do seem to have good outcomes with most of their patients. You can do follow up bloodwork and scans at home and then just have results sent to them.
I asked about how willing Dr. Cantrell is to work with your regular oncologist. I was told that he definitely will communicate with your primary oncologist. The only time that doesn't happen is if your oncologist is unwilling to communicate with him, which he said does happen with some doctors.

My husband and I are thinking "why wait" first to see if I totally fail on Folfiri- if this is something that could possibly make my tumors go away, as Folfiri hasn't done, then I should go check it out now. It's possible I'll be told I'm not a candidate, but from what I read, I think that I probably will be.

If you haven't checked out his website yet for yourself, do so- it's always good to be knowledgeable about other options out there.
Here it is again: www.neoplas.org
The Youtube video of Dr. Cantrell's interview on "Fox and Friends" 2 wks ago
It's titled "Dr. Stephen Cantrell"

Have a good day everyone-
Lisa