Oda Clinic　NKM Plus Cell Therapy with Maximized Ability to Attack Cancer Cells

Regenerative medicine is receiving significant attention worldwide. Regenerative medicine treatments aim to restore body functions by repairing and regenerating organs and tissues mainly using cells from the human body. For more than 25 years, Harunori Oda, Director of the Oda Clinic, has played a leading role in research on regenerative medicine using immune cell therapy techniques. Up till now, the three major standard cancer treatments have been surgery, anticancer drugs and radiotherapy. However, they impose a tremendous burden on the body and in the case of progressive or terminal cancer, the patient’s life may actually be shortened due to their side effects.

Natural killer (NK) cells have a powerful ability to damage or kill “enemy” cells right from the beginning when they act alone. The immune cell therapy that Dr. Oda has worked on involves collecting immune cells from the patient, increasing their quantity, quality and immune capacity outside the body and then returning them to the patient via an intravenous drip. NK cells play a leading role in immunity against cancer and, as long as they are highly active, do not miss any cells even if they are cancerous. NKM cell therapy involves culturing NK cells together with T cells and dendritic cells in a well-balanced mixture. The immune cells in 40-60 cc of collected blood are grown and activated using state-of-the-art proprietary, highly safe technology, which increases their quantity by 1.5 to 3 billion times.

Dr. Oda has further refined NKM immune cell therapy to develop his own immune therapy called “NKM Plus Immune Cell Therapy.” A major feature is the addition of several immune check-point inhibitors, such as Opdivo, when the cells are cultured. Anticancer drugs like Opdivo use other immune cells, and side effects due to their immune check point inhibitor activity are reported to frequently occur. In this situation, the immuno-activity of the cells will come to a halt without cancer cells being recognized (e.g., due to PD-1). Therefore, in NKM Plus Cell therapy, drugs like Opdivo are not used alone; several check point inhibitors are added in small amounts to the NKM immune cell therapy. This allows cells that will continue to recognize cancer cells to be administered.

The Oda Clinic also provides a proprietary treatment combining stem cell transplantation with NKM immune cell therapy. Stem cells are those that are at the stage prior to differentiating into various types of cells. At the clinic, fat tissue is collected from the abdominal region under local anesthesia and the stem cells in the tissue are cultured outside the body and then returned to it. By repairing parts of the body damaged by cancer and the surrounding areas, this treatment can be expected to have a metabolism-enhancing effect in the body overall. It has been said that it could also be effective against Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia, as well as Parkinson’s disease.