A thin needle, guided by CT, breaks the tumor open where it sits and delivers immunotherapy into the same spot, so your immune system can learn what to fight. For lung cancer that surgery cannot reach, or that has stopped answering treatment.
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.
Standard lung cancer care reaches the tumor from outside: surgery, radiation, or drugs through the whole body. We go in directly. Under CT guidance, a WCI physician places a thin needle into the tumor and breaks its cells open with electrical pulses or freezing, releasing the tumor's own antigens: the markers the immune system uses to recognize cancer. In the same session, immune drugs go into that exact spot. 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.
Ablation means treating a tumor through a needle, where it sits, instead of cutting it out. Many lung tumors sit against the heart, big vessels, nerves or the chest wall, where heat is risky. Pulsed electric fields break tumor cells open without heat, so tumors in those places can be treated. For small tumors where surgery is ruled out, national guidelines (NCCN) already list ablation as an option.
Some lung cancers are quiet to the immune system, so IV (drip) immunotherapy often does little. Breaking the tumor open releases its antigens, so the immune system finally has something to see. The drugs we inject into that spot are chosen to wake it up: some release its brakes, others press the accelerator.
Pulsed electric fields are the default for tumors near the center of the chest, the big vessels or the chest wall. Freezing (cryoablation) through the same kind of needle is also used, as in the case below.
Once the immune system has been alerted at one tumor and kept re-primed by the cycle above, it goes after the same cancer elsewhere in the body, and it remembers it. Doctors call this an abscopal effect.
Standard care. For medically inoperable stage I non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), guidelines (NCCN) list image-guided ablation as an option, for local control [1]. Stage III disease is treated with concurrent chemoradiation, with or without durvalumab. Stage IV disease is treated with chemotherapy, a checkpoint inhibitor such as pembrolizumab, or targeted therapy for a driver mutation (EGFR, ALK, ROS1, KRAS G12C) [1].
What ablation alone does. Local treatment of the tumor; no systemic effect is expected. Heat-based (thermal) ablation is limited near the heart, mediastinum, brachial plexus, pulmonary vessels and chest wall, which keeps many central and vessel-adjacent tumors off the target list.
What is done here. CT-guided ablation of an accessible tumor, usually with pulsed electric field (PEF) ablation, which uses electrical pulses rather than heat and so can be applied to tumors next to structures that heat would damage, followed in the same session by injection of a combination of immune-active agents into the ablated tumor. The rationale: some lung cancers, including EGFR-mutant adenocarcinomas, are immune-quiet, so intravenous immunotherapy often does little; ablation releases tumor antigens, and the injected agents are intended to drive an immune response to them. This combination is offered under physician review. In our clinical observations, treating one tumor produces responses at untreated sites, and lasting immune memory,.
Case review. CT chest, PET, brain MRI and biomarker reports (PD-L1; EGFR, ALK, ROS1, KRAS, BRAF, MET, RET, NTRK, NRG1) are read by the Williams Cancer Institute team.
Protocol design. The intratumoral combination is tuned to the tumor's immune profile and driver mutation.
Guidance and ablation. CT-guided percutaneous access to an accessible tumor. PEF ablation is the default for central, vessel-adjacent or chest-wall tumors; cryoablation is also used.
Intratumoral injection. Through the same access, into the ablation bed, in the same session.
Setting and time. Most procedures are outpatient under conscious sedation; general anesthesia or an overnight stay is rarely required. About an hour for the procedure and about two hours' recovery.
Follow-up. Imaging at 6 to 8 weeks. Repeat procedures as indicated by response; the number of treatments is decided with the patient's physician. The patient's thoracic, medical and radiation oncology teams are kept informed.
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.
Evidence. The pharmacological case for the intratumoral route comes from a mouse study: in mice with colorectal tumors and no ablation, anti-CTLA-4 injected into a tumor reached about 14 times the day-7 level of intravenous dosing in that tumor, the untreated tumor received no more than with intravenous dosing, and half the dose reached the blood within an hour [2]. That is mouse data in colorectal cancer; it does not test ablation and does not support a distant-site effect.
The claim that EGFR-mutant and KRAS G12C adenocarcinomas are "immune-excluded" is contested for KRAS: a 2025 meta-analysis found that KRAS-mutant NSCLC had better overall survival on checkpoint inhibitors (hazard ratio 0.89, 95% CI 0.79–0.99), across all KRAS mutations rather than G12C specifically [3]. The combination of PEF or cryoablation plus intratumoral immunotherapy in lung cancer has no randomized trial behind it. The case below is a single case record, not a series with a denominator.
One patient's course from our records, with the scans exactly as recorded. It is a neuroendocrine tumor of the lung, a rarer type than the most common lung cancers. Not every patient will have the same result.
Progressive neuroendocrine tumor of the lung.
Durable complete response; no recurrence more than ten years after treatment
Her chemotherapy had stopped working. One node was treated.
A woman whose lung neuroendocrine tumor was getting worse on chemotherapy. In a single session, a needle froze a lymph node in the center of the chest and immunotherapy was injected into the same spot. A scan seven weeks later showed a significant positive response. At five months the scans showed no evidence of disease, and later scans stayed clear. Her treating physician reports she was alive with no evidence of cancer more than ten years after treatment.
Progressing on chemotherapy. A single treatment, aimed at a single node.
A PET/CT about seven weeks later showed a significant positive response. At five months it showed continued improvement and no evidence of disease. Serial PET/CT scans remained clear. Her treating physician reports that she is alive and cancer-free today.
Durable complete response. The patient was without evidence of disease on serial PET/CT and remained alive long-term.
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Where your cancer is, and what it has been through, decides where we fit. Find the card closest to what you have been told. If you are unsure, send your records: a physician decides case by case, from your actual scans.
Usually a tumor a needle can reach safely, plus 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.
A collapsed lung (pneumothorax) is a known risk of any needle in the chest, so you are observed afterwards and may stay overnight. 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.
