Located in Tijuana and with offices in Southern California, Oasis of Hope provides a range of cancer treatment pathways under the Contreras Alternative Cancer Treatment (C-ACT) collective protocol. Oasis of Hope employs multiple therapeutic approaches, including cytotoxic treatment, which may or may not include very mild oral chemotherapy.
The effectiveness of traditional chemotherapy often is hampered by hypoxia, or poor oxygenation of tumors, and decreased activity in specific signaling pathways, which enables cancer cells to survive. An innovative approach involves the use of metronomic chemotherapy, or low doses of chemotherapy applied daily. This causes a continuous death of cancerous endothelial cells, which attempt to expand by forming new blood vessels. Metronomic chemotherapy slows down the angiogenic process significantly.
The metronomic approach has also been shown clinically to kill regulatory T (T-reg) cells. A type of immune cell, T-reg cells can congregate in tumors and suppress the beneficial activity of other immune cells that are able to fight tumors. When the T-reg cell population diminishes, T-cytotoxic cells and natural killer immune cells are better able to do their work of attacking the tumor.
