Mini-Transplant : The Beautiful and The Ugly
Panel A
Before
After
Panel B
Skin
Researchers around the world have tried unsuccessfully to separate the beneficial GVT effect from the detrimental GVHD toxicity. The immune mechanisms are inter-related and proportional such that anything that is done to suppress GVHD, also suppresses the GVT effect. Similarly, anything that is done to enhance the GVT effect also enhances GVHD toxicity.
Recognizing the intimate and proportional relationship of the GVT and GVHD effects that occur after Mini-Transplant procedures and the history of unsuccessful attempts to separate GVT from GVHD, Mirror Effect® technology provided a breakthrough approach to this problem. Instead of attempting to separate GVT from GVHD, as others have done, the Mirror Effect® proposed to maintain the intimate relationship between the two effects, but reverse the immunological flow.
In Mini-Transplant, the immunological flow cascades from the graft to the host, causing GVT and GVHD. Whereas in the Mirror Effect®, the flow originates from the host creating a non-toxic Host vs. Graft (HVG) rejection effect (the ‘mirror’ of GVHD) which supports a host vs. tumor (HVT) effect (the ‘mirror’ of GVT). The HVT effect elicited by the Mirror Effect® mechanism has been shown to be equally as powerful as the GVT effect of Mini-Transplant.
Panel A is a CT scan of the liver of a breast cancer patient before and after Mini-Transplant. Before there are multiple metastatic lesions (in the red circles) within the liver. After Mini-Transplant, all the tumors have been eliminated. However, while the tumors have been eliminated, Panel B shows how the immune system has attacked the skin (GVHD). The same attack occurs on the linings of the intestines, literally eating the patients from the inside and the outside. The Mini-Transplant GVT mechanism often clears the tumors, but more often GVHD kills the patient.