He presented his findings to a meeting in New Orleans of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, a meeting of 22,000 cancer specialists from around the world. Patented by Botanic Lab, a privately held company in Brea, California, it is based on a Chinese formula. Dr. Oh treated 23 patients whose prostate cancer had not responded to standard hormone therapy, which involves chemical or surgical castration to stop the supply of male hormones that fuel many cases of prostate cancer. Half of them saw a 50 percent drop in PSA levels after several weeks of taking six PC-SPES capsules a day. This was no Small improvement.
Average survival is a year to a year and a half at most.
Two patients have since died of their cancer and Dr. Oh stressed that he did not do follow-up research to see if the patients overall survival was improved. Ages ranged from 43 to 89. All of the patients with cancer that had responded to hormone therapy had a decline of at least 50 percent in their PSA levels.