Banerji cancer treatment attracts Columbia University

Kolkata-based Prasanta Banerji Homoeopathic Research Foundation (PBHRF), which has developed what it called the 'Banerji Protocol' of homeopathy treatment for pediatric cancer, recently hosted a team from the Columbia University (CU) of USA, to examine a possible collaboration under the Integrative Therapies Program (ITP) for children with cancer of Columbia's Division of Pediatric Oncology (DPO).

The alarming increase in the number of children afflicted with cancer in recent years had become a subject of serious concern internationally, PBHRF said in a release issued here.

Columbia University DPO faculty Dr Elena Ladas, Dr Kara Kelly and three other colleagues met 30 pediatric cancer patients, observing individual cases.

The team met Dr Prasanta Banerji, founder and managing trustee of PBHRF, along with Dr Pratip Banerji, co-founder and deputy managing trustee, and other senior senior doctors of PBHRF to assess the Banerji Protocol.

The PBHRF release pointed out that classical homoeopathy had no specific remedy for any disease by name, but it had specificity for each individual case of disease.

This approach of treating on basis of symptoms only was for long standing chronic diseases, and varied from patient to patient.

The Banerji Protocol was a new method of treatment based on specific medicines for specific diseases diagnosed with the use of modern methods to help in the selection of medicines for diseases.

The diagnostic tools used included ultrasonography, MRIs, cancer markers and related tests to streamline treatment protocols accurately.

The efficiency of this streamlining was reflected in encouraging results of the Banerji Protocol.

"We are impressed by the quality of life (QOL) of pediatric cancer patients following the sole use of homeopathic medicines, compared to the quality of life offered by chemotherapy, surgery and radiation," the PBHRF release quoted Kelly as stating at the end of the visit with Ladas.

PBHRF would now prepare a best case series of 10 case studies on pediatric cancer, for submission to the National Cancer Institute of USA, for subsequent initiation of clinical trials at Columbia University.

Discussions were held for initiating in vivo and in vitro experiments with PBHRF medicines at Columbia University. Ladas was director of the Columbia's ITP and member of the Children's Oncology Group Nutrition Task Force Steering Committee.

Kelly was medical director of ITP with expertise in the treatment of children with leukemia, lymphoma and histiolytic disorders and the chair of the committee for complementary and alternative medicine at the Children's Oncology Group, the largest research consortium of pediatric oncology centres in the United States and Canada.