In a letter to Congressman Molinari, Brenner outlined a protocol in which a panel of doctors would monitor cancer patients placed on alternative therapies after their conditions had been deemed unamenable to the standard forms of treatment. The letter contained the detailed case histories of ten advanced cancer patients whom Revici had healed.
One patient, a forty-three-year-old man, was diagnosed with an invasive, high-grade cancer of the bladder at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in September 1980. "They said, 'The only way you can be treated is if we take your bladder out and give you a colostomy on the side.' He said no.", The patient visited Dr. Revici in October and went on the therapy. He has had no other treatment. In 1987, he returned to Sloan-Kettering for a cystoscopy, which revealed him to be cancer-free.
Another patient, a twenty-nine-year-old woman, was operated on at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in October 1983 for a chordoma, a brain tumor. The tumor was incompletely resected, and the patient was given a course of radiation therapy. The young woman's condition progressively worsened during the twelve months following surgery. She was seen by Dr. Revici in May 1984, at which time she was confined to a wheelchair, with limited function. Since she started the Revici program, she has had two babies and functions well. Her only problem is that she walks with a cane.
Marianne Dimetres achieved remission from preterminal uterine cancer through a combination of Revici's nontoxic medications, wheatgrass therapy, diet, and psychological support. See her story on page 157.
Revici, who holds patents for his numerous chemical compounds, claims to have devised a novel technique to open double bonds in molecules of unsaturated fatty acids in order to incorporate different metallic elements at precise points in the molecules. The result is an entirely new series of therapeutic compounds, exceedingly low in toxicity and incorporating selenium, copper, sulfur, zinc, calcium, nickel, beryllium, mercury, lead, and other elements. In general, these compounds reportedly have a toxicity less than one-thousandth of that of the elements in the forms normally available. The technique converts toxic substances into safe anticancer agents. "Through this method, Revici has opened up an entirely new field for the therapeutic use of these elements," according to Dr. Dwight McKee, one of Revici's medical associates.4
Revici's use of selenium in the treatment of cancer predates mainstream interest in this mineral by more than twenty years. Selenium is one of the major trace elements always found deficient in cancer-prone populations. Research has shown that it is of value not only in preventing cancer but also in treating it. Revici uses a special molecular form of selenium (bivalent-negative selenium) incorporated in a molecule of fatty acid. In this form, he can administer up to 1 gram of selenium per day, which corresponds to 1 million micrograms per day, reportedly with no toxic side effects. In contrast, too much selenite (hexavalent-positive selenium) has toxic effects on animals, so human intake of commercial selenite is limited to a dosage of only 100 to 150 micrograms by mouth. Dr. Revici often administers his nontoxic form of selenium by injection, usually considered to be four times more powerful than the form given orally.
Extra selenium in the diet drastically reduces the spontaneous occurrence of cancer in mice. In human populations, high selenium intake correlates with low cancer rates. In a 140-~patient study of cancer victims treated with selenium, Dr. R. Donaldson of the St. Louis Veterans' Administration Hospital reported in 1983 that some patients deemed terminal with only weeks to live were completely free of all signs of cancer after four years; all the patients showed a reduction in tumor size and in pain.5