Using BioPACK™

To give you an example of how a treatment with Reveal's BioPACK™ would work, in practical terms, let's consider the hypothetical case of Sarah, a concert pianist. She has just received the news from her doctor that she has advanced breast cancer. Stage III, the doctor says. It has spread to other areas of her body, mostly in her right breast, right armpit and there is a very suspicious area on her scans in the right lung and another area in her liver.

And it's spreading rapidly.

The doctor says: "It will double every three months!"

If nothing is done, the doctor says she would be dead within a year, 18 months at the outside.

All Sarah can think of, in the first moment of shock, are thoughts of her daughter and her husband. Then, as her gaze turns inward, she thinks of her friend Gracie, who recently died of a similar cancer. She remembers the horrible chemotherapy and radiation that sapped her vitality, made her sick for months on end, the loss of her golden hair and the destruction of her sex life. Then, her brief rebirth, almost as if nothing happened, except for the fact that her spark was gone, her fast wit and quick riposte, lost to one of those terrible after-effects of chemotherapy, "chemobrain". Afterwards her friend seemed to have a slowness and mental fog that was now recognized as one of the long-lasting side effects of conventional cancer therapies. And then there was the terrible news of a recurrence. The brutal second chemotherapy regimen followed! The horrifying weight loss as the cancer consumed her, making her look like an image of one of those walking skeletons one sees of the victims of concentration camps. And in a final indignity, the omnipresent pain that even morphine couldn't control as the cancer consumed her very bones, making every motion, and touch, a torture. From the time she was told of the cancer, to her death, a scant three years had passed. Most of it in hospitals, her life was completely dominated by the needs of her therapy - and her needs, in coping with side-effects of that therapy. A living hell!


Sarah is terrified! She clutches her husband's hand so hard it turns white. "When do we start chemotherapy?" she asks, feigning calm while dreading the answer.

The doctor looks at her and smiles gently. "We don't poison people anymore Sarah. We're smarter now. We reveal to the immune system the cancer that is attacking your body and help the immune system destroy it. It is called the Reveal Immunotherapy using the BioPACK™. It's this small device right here on my desk. It's about the size of a smart phone, but about twice as thick. These two ports, here and here, will attached to a catheter so that your blood can be processed in the BioPACK™ all day, every day of the week. The device has sensors that continuously monitors and reports your status over the Internet. Should the BioPACK™ malfunction in any way, it will automatically stop and seal itself off. That almost never happens. But if it does, don't panic. Just call us and we will fit you with a new one. All you will need to do is swap out the battery pack every night, and recharge the pack you take out.

Tomorrow, we will fit you with a little catheter that will give us access to your blood system. And for the next 3 months the BioPACK™ will help your immune system target and destroy the cancer. If all goes well, and in the best of all outcomes, in 3 months you will be cancer free. In the worst case, the cancer will be beaten back dramatically, and you can look forward to two to three years of high quality life before we have to worry about recurrence. In that case, we just repeat the therapy. There are no guarantees of course, any therapy may fail, but let's cross that bridge when we come to it. Let me call Radiology right now and schedule your catheter insertion. In the meantime, my nurse will explain all the details to you and send you home with all the literature."

The next morning Sarah arrives early in the morning to Radiology.  They put her in the typical hospital gown and she waits for the interventional radiologist to arrive.  The nurse and doctor walk in and have her lay flat on the bed.  They swab her left arm with disinfectant and using an ultrasound probe, look at her blood vessels to pick the best one. The radiologist explains that no one inserts catheters blindly anymore, except in an emergency, and that with ultrasound guidance, placing the catheter properly is almost a certainty.  Sarah feels a pinch of pain as the doctor injects anesthetic and then a pulling and poking sensation. “Almost done here Sarah.  Just hold still as I check placement with the ultrasound... there. Perfect.  Now we place this transparent bandage over the area, tie down the catheter end so it doesn't move around and bother you, and voila.  You are all set.” Start to finish the procedure takes fifteen minutes and is almost painless.

The radiologist tells her that the area is sterile and if she takes good care of it, it may last until the end of her therapy. If not, they simply place a new one, as easily and quickly, and rarely do patients need three placements.

Sarah gets dressed. In a few minutes, she will be escorted to the treatment floor.

"Hello Sarah, I'm Nurse Johnson, and I will be your nurse for the next three months. And when I'm not hovering over you, my team nurses, Nurses Starling and Calvin will be available. Come over here now and let me weigh you. Great. 135 pounds at a height of 5 feet 5 inches. I am going to set up your BioPACK™. Let's go over to the treatment room. We have to watch you for a few hours when we first start-up the BioPACK, just as a precaution, but after that you will be free to go and engage in all your normal activities. After that we will see you every third week for a routine evaluation, as long as things go smoothly."

Sarah is escorted into a bright clean room with hardwood floors and twenty classy leather EZ-Boy recliners Several patients are already connected and being treated by their BioPACK™. One is reading a book. Another is watching a DVD on a small laptop-like player. The third is in animated talk with a relative over the phone.

Sarah wants about to know more about the BioPACK™. Nurse Johnson tells her that: "Your blood will flow out of the catheter, and into a tiny chamber in the machine will separate the cells from the blood fluid itself, the plasma. The plasma then will then go into one of two chambers in the Reveal Therapies BioPACK™, where the minor miracle of retargeting your immunes system to destroy the cancer happens. One chamber pulls stuff out of the blood so the immune system can actually see the cancer. The other chamber tells the killer cells in your blood stream to attack the cancer. Then your blood cells and plasma are recombined and returned to the catheter in your arm and back to your bloodstream. There is a third chamber that stores some of your cells and stimulates a vaccine, which is released into your bloodstream once a week. Now if you want, we can get started, all I need you to do is to lay down in the recliner. Let me cover your arm with a small sterile field and swab your catheter connecters. Ok. Here we go. First, I'll take some blood into a syringe for our standard blood tests, your cancers markers and a few other markers that tell us how effective the therapy is. Then I place the blood in these labeled tubes to send to our lab and we'll know before you leave today what your starting values are. Using this small Velcro harness, we'll fasten the BioPACK™ to your arm, and then run these two little tubes to your catheter. Then, using this little control pad, I press the green START button. You hear that whisper? That's the little pump in the BioPACK™ moving your blood. How do you feel?"

"I feel fine. Other than a tiny touch of cold where the catheter is in my arm when it started," says Sarah.

"That's normal. Let me know if you feel anything else. The BioPACK™ is Internet-enabled with one-way communications. Data can only go out, but nothing can come in, so it is completely safe and secure. It will send us regularly, that will be summarized daily status reports, which you can check online. Ok, everything is going smoothly, I have another patient to start on and we'll put her right next to you in 15 minutes." Nurse Johnson walks away.

Sarah looks around. She thinks it can't be this easy. "I have cancer. My life is in jeopardy. Yet these other patients seem so calm, so... so healthy. Yet if they are here, they too must have serious cancer."

5 minutes pass and Sarah realizes she's bored. There are magazines within reach and she starts to read. Around the half-hour mark she realizes that her right breast and armpit feel hot and that the hot sensation is spreading down her chest. Very worried, she calls for Nurse Johnson.

"That's ok Sarah. That's the therapy working. Your body is already attacking your cancer. Here let's take a look. You see this redness on your breast. That's called an inflammatory reaction. A war is going on at the level of your cells and the tumor is under attack. It isn't painful usually and it's the one time, if it is painful, that we are going to tell you to clench your teeth and bear it, because we dare not interfere with what your immune system is doing right now."

It turns out Nurse Johnson was right. After four hours of therapy the hot sensation never becomes painful. Nurse Johnson walks over and says, "Well, all the BioPACK™ readouts are in the green. Ready to go home? Excellent! We checked your values and your cancer marker is pretty high, about 500. We are going to look at that value every time you come to see us. When we get that down to zero, we will be done. Ok. Let me show you how to turn off the BioPACK™. If you ever feel you need to, you can – but you will have to come back in to restart it. Press the red STOP button on the control. Wait until the soft whirring stops. Unhook the inlet tube like so. Then the other. Spray your connectors with disinfectant and cover them. And that's it. OK? You are free to go. Remember if you develop any sudden pain or shortness of breath to call us. You might feel like you have a little bit of the flu, which is another sign that the therapy is working. The hot sensation will be with you for the first few weeks, but shouldn't become painful. If it does, try not to take anything and call us if you positively must so we know what meds you are on. We'll see you again on Thursday and then once every 3 weeks thereafter. Remember the BioPACK™ calls home over the Internet to us every day, so we always know your status."

Sarah leaves, her spirits uplifted by the direct perception that she can actually feel the therapy at work in her body, and she can sense that her immune system is attacking the cancer. When she gets home she stands naked in front of the mirror, seeing the red hot skin mirroring all the places where her doctor told her the cancer was located on her right breast, right armpit and down the right side of her chest.

The next morning the redness is still with her but it is mild. Feeling fine overall, she decides that she won't cancel her piano practice, as she has a recital for friends and family in two weeks. A quick shower and she is off to practice.

By Thursday, after four days of using the BioPACK™, the redness is starting to diminish. She goes to the clinic for her second visit. She tells Nurse Johnson about her experience; and, the nurse confirms for her that her experience is not unique and quite normal reaction to the therapy. Nurse Johnson looks her over. "The BioPACK™ is working perfectly. We got all your daily reports and I have good news for you. Your marker is already dropping. You're down 10%, to 450! I can't wait until after your third week when the BioPACK™ begins to release your body's own cancer vaccine into you."

Again, the next day, the redness is with her but causes no problems. She lives her life as usual, enjoying early morning sex with her husband, and delighting in a baking session with other mothers getting ready for a bake sale for her daughter's school. Every evening she religiously swaps out the batteries. In the dead of night, she can hear the whisper of the BioPACK™, as it tirelessly works on her blood and immune system.

Another week goes by uneventfully, but her marker is down another 30 points! She keeps practicing the piano, a particularly difficult Chopin piece. The recital is only a few days away.

Sarah comes to the clinic for her regularly scheduled visit three weeks later. Nurse Johnson explains. "This time around Sarah, the BioPACK™ is taking some of your immune cells and some of your blood to help make a vaccine against your cancer. The BioPACK™ will process those extra cells so they can make a specific vaccine against your specific tumor. We know that your body is destroying the tumor, but we hopefully want to make it a permanent thing. Most vaccine efforts used to fail because the cancer was interfering with by the immune system. But Reveal's BioPACK™ therapy counters the effects of the tumor that interfere with your body developing a vaccine. Once the cells are ready in a few days, the BioPACK™ will pour the vaccine right back into you through your catheter. Oh, and by the way, your cancer marker is down to 300."

Another week goes by. She logs onto her BioPACK™ monitoring page. Everything is in the green and her specific cancer marker is down to 270!

Friday evening arrives, time for the recital. Sarah performs at the top of her ability and notices, only at the end of the recital, that hotness and redness of her body's reaction to the tumor seems to last longer and stronger than before. Nobody knows under the flowing sleeves of her recital gown, that she is being treated for cancer with the Reveal BioPACK™.

At the end of the first month, the inflammatory reaction to the tumor seems to stop. Deeply concerned she voices her anxiety to her doctor at their monthly meeting: "Nothing to worry about Sarah. Your tumor marker is down to 100. We are winning. There isn't enough tumor left in your body to cause the strong redness you were seeing on the skin. In fact, you probably won't see much of anything over the next two months, except that your cancer marker will continue to drop."

Sarah however, hears only three words: "We are winning!"

The next two months pass in a blur with the BioPACK™ tirelessly performing its function. Her life is unchanged. And every time she goes online, her markers are lower and lower.

She meets with her oncologist, this time holding her husband's hand in a relaxed and loving manner. She knows it is only going to be good news.

"Well Sarah, your cancer marker has been zero three times in a row now, and other than scar tissue on the PET scan, we can't see anything we would call a tumor. Now we don't know if this is a cure or a long-lasting remission, and we will have to watch you like a hawk and see you every two months, but I'm really pleased at how your therapy went. You are poster child for how we treat cancer today."

That night, a major party was held at Sarah's house to celebrate her victory over a lethal disease. She was elated. Through the course of her therapy, she did not "puke out her guts", loose her hair, or feel like dying while agonizing in her bed for days at a time, like she would have under the insidious side-effects of the slow poisons used in radiation or chemotherapy. On the contrary, she felt invigorated, energized, and euphoric. She was going to live.

In fact, with the BioPACK™, she was hardy inconvenienced at all; and, her life continued to be worth living.

She had good reason to throw a party that night. And she did - all night long.