Nearly every cervical cancer is driven by HPV, which leaves marks your immune system should see. We treat the tumor through a needle and inject immunotherapy where those marks are. For cervical cancer that came back and stopped answering the drugs.
Complete a short, three-step form to begin your admissions process. One of our patient consultants will contact you to explain the process and guide you through the next steps.
When cervical cancer comes back or spreads and the drugs stop working, options narrow. We treat the tumor through a needle. We use electrical pulses, or sometimes cold, rather than heat, because pelvic tumors sit against the bladder and rectum. The same needle injects immune drugs. It works alongside your current treatment, not in place of it.
The immune drugs placed in the tumor teach the immune system to recognize this cancer, the way a vaccine does. You teach the immune system in one spot, and it goes after the same cancer in the rest of the body.
The treated tumor is the source of the vaccine, and it keeps supplying it. It is not one exposure and done. Every round of tumor cells the immune system destroys exposes new antigens, and those restart the cycle, so the response keeps spreading: broader, throughout the body, and with memory. It turns a “cold” tumor, one the immune system ignores, “hot”.
Card 06 leads back to card 02. Doctors call the widening response epitope spreading.
Pelvic tumors often sit against the bladder, rectum, ureters and big pelvic vessels. Treating a tumor with heat (heat-based ablation) is risky there. Pulsed electric fields break tumor cells open without heat, so we can treat where a hot probe could not go.
HPV causes nearly all cervical cancer, and the tumor carries two viral proteins the immune system should see. The tumor hides them. Breaking it open exposes them, and the injected drugs are meant to push the immune system to act.
About an hour under image guidance, and most people go home the same day, about two hours later.
Once the immune system has been alerted at one tumor and kept re-primed by the cycle above, it acts against tumors elsewhere that were never treated, and it remembers them.
Standard care. Early disease: radical hysterectomy, or chemoradiation with brachytherapy. Locally advanced disease: concurrent chemoradiation and brachytherapy, with pembrolizumab in selected cases. Recurrent or metastatic disease: pembrolizumab with chemotherapy and bevacizumab (KEYNOTE-826), then tisotumab vedotin (Tivdak); after that, options narrow.
Ablation alone. Ablation alone gives local control only; heat-based ablation is limited in the pelvis because tumors sit against the bladder, rectum, ureters and iliac vessels.
This approach. Image-guided ablation of the pelvic tumor, combined in the same session with a multi-agent intratumoral immunotherapy injected into the ablation bed. Pulsed electric field (PEF) ablation, a non-thermal method, is used where the tumor lies against structures heat would injure; cryoablation is used where the anatomy allows. It is intended for recurrent or metastatic disease that has progressed on the standard lines, for oligoprogressive disease, and in selected locally advanced cases alongside chemoradiation. In our clinical observations, the immune response reaches untreated tumors elsewhere.
The procedure, step by step
Agents. The injected immunotherapy is a multi-agent combination. The agents and doses are set per patient by the treating physician.
The immune conversion cycle, in clinical terms. Ablation disrupts the tumor and exposes its full antigen repertoire, not a pre-selected subset. The injected immunotherapy then remodels the tumor microenvironment, priming, recruiting and activating immune cells and releasing the brakes on them. Immune-mediated lysis exposes further antigens, which re-prime the response (epitope spreading), producing a broader, polyclonal, systemic response with memory, converting a cold tumor hot. This is WCI’s stated rationale, in Dr. Goodyear’s framing, borne out in our clinical observations.
Rationale. Nearly all cervical cancers are caused by HPV, so the tumor carries viral proteins (E6 and E7) that the immune system can in principle recognize as foreign; the tumor suppresses that response. WCI's rationale is that ablation exposes those viral antigens and that the injected agents amplify immune recognition of them at the site. This is what we see in our clinical observations.
Evidence, and its limits. In mice with colorectal tumors and no ablation, anti-CTLA-4 injected into a tumor reached about 14 times the day-7 level of IV dosing in that tumor; the untreated tumor received no more than with IV dosing, and half the dose reached the blood within an hour [1]. That is mouse data in a colorectal model, not cervical; it does not test ablation or show a distant-site effect. There is no published WCI series in cervical cancer and no randomized trial of this combination. Sources
Where your cancer is, and what it has already been given, decides where we fit. Pick the card that sounds like your diagnosis. Whether this is right for you is decided case by case, by a physician reading your records, so no list here is a verdict. If you are unsure, send the records.
There is a tumor a needle can reach safely, and one of these:
Each case is individually evaluated by the Williams Cancer Institute team.
After completing our admissions form, one of our Patient Consultants will contact you to explain the process and guide you through the next steps. Our admissions process is free of charge, including the review of your medical information and, if our medical team determines that you are a candidate, a video consultation. Treatments are generally not covered by health insurance, and WCI does not bill insurance companies.
One of our Patient Consultants will contact you to explain the admissions process, answer your general questions, and guide you through the next steps.
Your Patient Consultant will guide you on the required medical records and imaging studies, as well as how to submit them so our medical team can evaluate your case.
Once the necessary information has been received, our medical team will review your case to determine whether you may be a candidate for our treatments. If necessary, the medical team may request additional studies or information before making a decision.
If our medical team determines that you are a candidate, we will coordinate a complimentary Zoom consultation with one of our physicians. During this consultation, you will be able to discuss your case, address your medical questions, and learn about the treatment approach indicated for you.
Following your medical consultation, you will receive a personalized treatment plan that includes the corresponding costs. If you decide to proceed, the next steps will be coordinated to schedule your treatment.
Most treatments take place in Los Cabos, Mexico; in some cases our medical team may schedule a procedure in Mexico City. Rebyota is given only at our Beverly Hills, California location.
Your physician confirms the details for your case.
Your physician goes through the risks for your case before anything is decided.
Dr. Jason Williams is a board-certified radiologist who has spent his career putting needles into tumors under imaging. His first patent, in 2003, covered ablation combined with immunotherapy injected into the tumor. A physician since 2000, he opened his first ablation center in 2004 and completed his residency in 2007. He also co-founded Syncromune, whose separate investigational drug SV-102 holds FDA Fast Track status. His tumor board reviews every case.
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Most of our treatments are performed in Los Cabos, Mexico, in a private hospital setting.
Other treatment locations. In some cases our medical team may schedule a procedure in Mexico City. Rebyota is given only at our Beverly Hills, California location.
Accounts Williams Cancer Institute publishes, shared with each patient's permission. They span different cancers. Individual results vary and are not guaranteed.
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Read the full account →Complete our admissions form to get started. One of our Patient Consultants will contact you to explain the process and guide you through the next steps, including the medical information and imaging studies required for our medical team to evaluate your case.
