Hypoxia Supports Tumor Growth

Hypoxia interferes with effective radiation and chemotherapy. Hypoxia incapacitates several different types of immune effector cells, enhances the activity of immunosuppressive cells and provides new avenues which help “blind” immune cells to the presence of tumor cells.[1] Hypoxia is the enemy of anti-tumor immune response. Oxygenation, on the other hand, would reduce tumors escape from immune surveillance and response.

Several doctors report, “Rapidly growing tumors with poorly formed vasculature have low oxygen levels, and limited oxygen availability results in a hypoxic microenvironment. Patients with high levels of tumor hypoxia have a significantly worse prognosis than patients with low levels. Thus, targeting tumor hypoxia in the treatment of prostate cancer has the potential to improve patient response to treatment and overall survival.”

Hypocapnia (CO2 deficiency) in the lungs and, in most cases, arterial blood is a normal finding in chronic diseases due to prevalence of chronic hyperventilation among the sick. An understanding of the pathogenesis of disease, in which hypocapnia is a constitutive element, is necessary to understand cancer. Hypocapnia is a universal constant behind disease.

The Warburg effect (WE), or aerobic glycolysis, triggered by hypoxia, is commonly recognized as a hallmark of cancer and has been extensively studied for potential anti-cancer therapeutics development.[2]

[1] Int J Hyperthermia. 2010; 26(3): 232–246. Hypoxia-Driven Immunosuppression: A new reason to use thermal therapy in the treatment of cancer?

[2] Front. Endocrinol., 23 October 2017 https://doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2017.00279. The Emerging Facets of Non-Cancerous Warburg Effect