The role of your cancer health professional is to create an environment of openness and trust, and to help in making informed decisions about alternative/ complementary therapies. Collaboration will improve the safe integration of all therapies during your experience with cancer. The "Summary" and "Professional Evaluation/ Critique" sections of this Unconventional Therapies manual are cited directly from the medical literature, and are intended to help in the objective evaluation of alternative/ complementary therapies.

Summary

"There is no evidence that Koch antitoxins are effective as a means of treating cancer." (National Cancer Institute)

Description/ Source/ Components

"The Koch method is a systematic course of dieting and enemas combined with administration of Koch Synthetic Antitoxins (malnide, glyoxylide, and parabenzoquinone)." (National Cancer Institute)

The treatment injections were made up of one part glyoxylide to one trillion parts water. (Plenderleith)

"Dr. Koch preferred to deliver glyoxylide only once or twice in the form of intramuscular injections (2 cc), in a highly diluted (possible homeopathic) form." (Diamond)

History

This treatment was developed by William F. Koch, M.D., Ph.D., a graduate of the University of Michigan. He initially called this substance "synthetic anti-toxin"; it later became known as "glyoxylide". Koch died in Brazil in 1967. (Wilson)

The treatment was also marketed under the label of the "Christian Medical Research League". (Janssen)

Proponent/ Advocate Claims

Dr. Koch claimed that the Koch Synthetic Antitoxins "stimulate the destruction of the toxins responsible for the growth of cancer tissue." (National Cancer Institute)

"William F. Koch reasoned that cells become cancerous because the blood's oxygen levels get depleted. If sufficient oxygen were continually delivered to the body's tissues, cancer pathology would be virtually impossible." (Diamond)

"Promoted as a cure for 69 diseases from appendicitis to herpes zoster." (Plenderleith)

Koch claimed that "cancer was caused by a germ which resembled a spirochete, he stated that his discovery was also effective against tuberculosis, psoriasis, leprosy, polio, syphilis, appendicitis, herpes zoster." (Wilson)

Professional Evaluation/ Critique

There is no evidence published in a peer-reviewed journal that Koch's treatment is effective against cancer.

"Recently Sulzle reviewed the literature and considered the theoretical possibilities for the existence of a compound like glyoxylide. He found that all efforts to prepare, isolate, or chemically identify this compound failed. His studies on the theoretical physical chemistry of glyoxylide showed that the substance described by Koch cannot exist in nature. This, along with Jensen's failure to find anything in Koch's 'medicine' confirms the conclusion that the glyoxylide which Koch claims to have invented did not exist." (Sulzle) (Green)

Costs

Thousands of patients paid up to $300 for an injection. (Plenderleith, 1985)

References

Diamond WJ, et al. An alternative medicine definitive guide to cancer. Tiburon, California: Future Medicine Publishing, Inc., 1997:34,922.

Green S. Oxygenation therapy: unproven treatments for cancer and AIDS. Sci Rev Alt Med 1998;2:6-12.

Janssen WF. Cancer quackery: the past in the present. Semin Oncol 1979;6(4):526-635.

National Cancer Institute. Koch Synthetic Antitoxins. Cancer Facts 1990 Mar 30.

Plenderleith I. Memorandum on alternative treatments for cancer. Vancouver: BC Cancer Agency Cancer Information Centre, 1985. (BCCA Cancer Information Centre search file 1121)

Sulzle D, et al. Experiments aimed at generating the long sought after glyoxilide by neutralization-reionization mass spectrometry. Int J Mass Spectroscopy & Ion Processes 1993;125:75.

Wilson BR (M.D.). Cancer quackery primer. Dallas, Oregon: The author, 1985.

Revised February 2000