Dr.
William Coley (
1862–
1936) was an American bone surgeon and
cancer researcher, pioneer of
cancer immunotherapy. He developed a treatment based on provoking an
immune response to
bacteria.
Dr. William Coley worked as a bone surgeon at New York Cancer Hospital (which later became part of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center). He looked into the success rates of cancer treatment in the past compared to his day. He found that surgery had been much more effective in the past, before the use of antiseptics when infection was a normal side effect of surgery. For example, one surgeon in the 1770s purportedly cured six out of every seven patients. Coley also learned of the case of a patient at his own hospital seven years earlier, who had throat and tonsil cancer. After surgery, there was not much hope for him. Then he came down with erysipelas, a bacterial infection caused by Streptococcus pyogenes. His cancer disappeared, and Coley found that he was still alive, seven years later.
He discovered that the human immune system could be stimulated through the administration of killed bacterial infusions. Once stimulated, he observed, the immune system would be capable of tackling cancerous cells along with the infection.[citation needed] The cancerous cells would then slough off.
His clinical tests achieved a number of remissions, in patients with severe or terminal tumours. His work was however marginalised, by the advent of radiology and radiation treatment.
