My name is Josefina Cua, below is a brief summary of my 10 years of fight against cancer.

Sometime in the second week of August of 1991, when my HMO primary care doctor called to tell me that my white blood count (WBC) in my recent medical checkup was abnormally high, 42700, and I needed to have another blood test to confirm, my first reaction was "Oh, my God, I have leukemia,". Luckily, subsequent blood tests indicated that my WBC was not increasing, but fluctuated between 40000 and 50000, not high enough to be considered acute leukemia. Since I didn't want to have biopsy, my doctor told me that I might have chronic leukemia. She wanted to keep a close monitoring on my WBC, but didn't prescribe any anti-cancer drug. Her only advice was to supplement with iron and vitamin B12 because I had always been slightly anemic.

My WBC lingered at about 40000 for two years and then gradually decreased to values within the normal range sometime in 1997. I was very happy to know that after 6 years, my alleged chronic leukemia had been "cured" without any medication. I noticed that although my WBC was within normal range, my red blood count (RBC) was slightly below the normal range.

I had acidic and gassy stomach very often in addition to my constantly slight anemia. In the beginning of 1998 I started to have unusually high frequency of stomach gas with foul smell. I thought it might be the acidic stomach and tried to remedy it with anti-acid drug such as maalox. However, my flatulent condition worsened to abnormal change of bowel habit. This problem lasted for about 3 months, I didn't suspect it to be problem in the colon until my doctor noticed my low values in RBC. She suspected internal bleeding and ordered a colonoscopy test for me. The colon biopsy turned out to be cancerous in the test on July 7, 1998. I was then scheduled for colon surgery in August.

Two nymph nodes were found to be involved after the colon surgery, which implied metastasis. I was given the usual 5FU and leucovorin chemotherapy after the surgery. The colon cancer marker, CEA, was 2.5, within the normal range, after the chemotherapy.

About 6 months after the chemotherapy, my CEA value on June 14, 1999, showed a value of 3.0, which was the upper limit of the normal range. The value slowly increased for the next 6 months. I had a CT scan on August 13, 1999. The scan showed a small mass, about 1 cm diameter, on my liver. The doctor could not determine whether the mass was already there after the surgery, or was newly formed, since there was no CT scan taken immediately after the surgery for comparison. No action was taken at that time.

I had an office mate who had severe allergy due to overdose of antibiotics because of her constantly slightly elevated fever without known reason for many years. Finally she went to a homeopathic clinic in Nevada for treatment, and the disease symptoms disappeared after the treatment. I was very impressed by her result and went to the same clinic in September, 1999, for a treatment, hoping that the treatment could improve my cancer. The treatment didn't improve my CEA value.

My CT scan on November 18, 1999, showed that the mass in the liver had increased to about 3 cm. I didn't want to go through surgery again before I was very sure that it was the only way. So I decided to wait for the next CT scan 3 months later. While waiting, I decided to go to Nevada State to have a laetrile treatment that used laetrile, megavitamin C and other nutritional supplements.

Before I went to Nevada's laetrile treatment, a friend informed me of an alternative therapy called CDA-II treatment. CDA stood for "cell differentiation agent". It was a drug extracted from human urine. It had been used in China and Japan since 1996. Clinical results in China for the past 4 years indicated high percentage of positive response. Dr. K. Sanu of Sanu Surgical Hospital in Kofu, a city near Tokyo, Japan, used CDA-II together with laetrile and vitamin C had shown a 70% positive response for various types of cancer. My friend also mentioned one cancer patient in Houston, Texas, who used CDA-II treatment in China, and was back in Houston, and another breast cancer patient in San Francisco who had also been treated with CDA-II in China and was also back in San Francisco. I contacted the patient in San Francisco and was able to borrow some CDA-II injectable vials from her. I did plenty of literature search on the internet on the cell differentiation therapy and the drug extracted from urine. I found that CDA-II drug was non-toxic, and the property was similar, but not exactly the same, as the antineosplastons used by Dr. Bursynski in Houston, Texas. I also found that the so-called urine therapy was becoming popular in Japan and Taiwan recently. The references of urine therapy on the internet could filled up a notebook. CDA-II was a concentrated form of urine therapy. I found much of its information on the web site of everlife.com.an. There was a nice biochemical theory in the action of CDA-II against cancer cells advanced by Dr. Ming C. Liau, the biochemist who produced CDA-II drug. I decided to try it together with the laetrile treatment as was done by Dr. Sanu in Japan by adding CDA-II to vitamin C solution. However, when I went to have my laetrile treatment in Nevada, the doctor would not allow me to add CDA-II to the vitamin C solution because CDA-II was not approved by the FDA for use in cancer treatment although it was non-toxic. So I missed the opportunity of using CDA-II treatment in my fight against cancer.

While I was under laetrile treatment in Nevada, the doctor informed me of the possibility of using alcohol injection treatment, which was particularly suitable in my case where the mass was concentrated at one single site in the liver. But he had to refer me to another specialist who could perform the treatment. Unfortunately that specialist was so busy that he didn't even return my calls to make an appointment. After I returned from Nevada's laetrile treatment, I discovered that alcohol treatment was available in my HMO hospital, but was never mentioned to me before. I also discovered another treatment called cryogenic surgery that had been used on liver cancer. This treatment required surgery to reach the liver tumor and then to use liquid nitrogen to freeze the cancer mass and break it off. I remembered reading news a few months ago about the breakthrough in China of similar cryogenic removal of liver mass without surgery. I also found out from my church that one of the members had alcohol injection treatment in the hospital of Alhambra, exactly where I lived, 5 years ago. His liver cancer was controlled. Unfortunately, all these discoveries were too late, my mass in the liver was 8 cm diameter, too large for these treatments. I had communicated with friends in China to find out more about that cryogenic removal of liver mass without surgery. Through my friend's effort in contacting the hospital in An Hui province of China that performed such operation, the hospital was even willing to accept me. Unfortunately, I was paying more attention in trying to find out if Alhambra Hospital, one mile from where I lived, could still accept me to alcohol injection or cryogenic surgery treatment, I didn't pursue the route to go to China for cryogenic treatment. Finally I missed both Alhambra and Chinese hospitals. The cancer mass grew very fast, even within a few weeks.

I had an office mate who had similar case as I was, but was diagnosed a year earlier than I was. She had recently been treated with chemo drug CPT-11, and had seemed to have improvement. In May and June of 2000, I followed the suggestion of HMO doctor and was treated with Xeloda then followed by CPT-11. The chemo treatment didn't help, my CEA value continued to elevate very fast after the chemotherapy.

I visited Tijuana's cancer clinics after the unsuccessful chemotherapy and met a lady from San Francisco who had been given up by conventional cancer therapy three years ago. She came to Tijuana and had a whole body hyperthermia with laetrile treatment. Her terminal breast cancer was controlled. She revisited the clinic in Tijuana every 6 months thereafter for vitamin booster or more whole body hyperthermia if necessary. She said she had two hyperthermia treatments since she came to Tijuana, and the treatment saved her life. I came back to Los Angeles and found out that there was one cancer clinic nearby that performed the local hyperthermia with low dose radiation treatment. The treatment could be covered by my medical insurance. I made an appointment with that clinic immediately and was treated in August, 2000. My CEA value dropped to 360 from 698 after 10 treatments within 3 weeks. This was my first decrease in CEA marker since the recurrence/metastasis a year ago.

While I was being treated with local hyperthermia and low dose radiation therapy, the brother of my best friend, who was a specialist in cancer radiation therapy in Taiwan, advised me to take up "radiosurgery" treatment. His hospital in Taiwan had the most advanced radiosurgery equipment, but a hospital in Staten Island in New York also had similar equipment. He advised me to go to Staten Island for treatment. Radiosurgery was a concentrated form of radiation that rotated the radiation equipment around the body and radiated the cancer mass 3 to 4 times during the rotation. The treatment was supposed to bombard the cancer mass as much as possible from different directions so that the side effects to the normal cells would be minimal. I contacted the hospital in Staten Island and was accepted when I had my tenth treatment in local hyperthermia and low radiation. Although the hyperthermia treatment was showing improvement in my CEA value, I had more confidence in my best friend's brother, I decided to stop the hyperthermia treatment and to go Staten Island at the end of August, 2000.

I requested CEA test before starting the radiosurgery in Staten Island. The value was 316, confirming the value of 360 tested in Los Angeles. I stayed in Staten Island for about a month for the radiosurgery treatment. The doctor told me not to pay attention to CEA value for one to two months, because the value might go up due to the treatment. I continued to monitor my CEA value, but wasn't worried by its continuing increase for the next two months. My CT scan about 2 months after the radiosurgery, however, showed enlargement to 12 cm from 10 cm before radiosurgery. I guessed the radiosurgery didn't help.

After the unsuccessful radiosurgery treatment, I went to a hospital in Tijuana to start the laetrile treatment with CDA-II. That hospital had accepted CDA-II manufacturer's proposal to include CDA-II in there laetrile treatment sometime in July, 2000. I went to that hospital in November to try out the treatment. With 12 cm mass in my liver, I had nothing to lose. I had about 6 weeks of treatment, but CEA continued to increase. My condition seemed to worsen, and I started to show slight sign of jaundice and ascites. I then decided to have whole body hyperthermia treatment, and was treated in Tijuana on January 18, 2001. I came back to Los Angeles at the end of January, 2001. The CEA value dropped to 645 on February 5, compared to 1202 on January 9, before the hyperthermia. However, CEA marker was meaningless at this time because my liver was not functioning anymore. My jaundice and ascites had worsened. I was informed that these two conditions marked the beginning of the end.

End of the Patient Report

Chronological summary of the WBC, CEA, CT scan, and treatment