Extracorporeal Blood Circulation Versus O₂-O₃ (EBOO)

Abstract

During the 1980s, I became acquainted with several methods to activate immune cells in cancer patients during extracorporeal circulation of blood. In Chapter 14, section Leukocytes and the Immune System, an approximate calculation indicated that to activate a sizable proportion of immune cells, we should perform at least 50 O₃-AHT in a six month period. In 1992, after we had shown that O₃ can act as a mild inducer of cytokines, I became very keen on examining whether intensive blood ozonization could help terminal cancer patients, thus overcoming the disadvantage of classical O₃-AHT. This could be realized by a dialysis-like system, substituting the dialysis liquid with a continuous flow of O₂-O₃. It seems that, around that time, other people in various countries had a similar idea. However, regretfully without any scientific and medical background, they lured and exploited desperate patients. I remember distinctly the winter morning when I was passing by the Siena Polyclinic and I suddenly decided to go and talk with the Director of the Nephrology and Dialysis Unit, Prof. Nicola di Paolo. Unlike many other distinguished clinicians, he let me talk and immediately grasped the meaning and the possible implications, with an enthusiastic mood that I could never have even dreamt of. It has taken almost a decade of laboratory, preclinical and preliminary clinical work before optimizing the method and I can recall many ups and downs. In the end, we shall see if it was a good or irrelevant idea. Yet, whatever the outcome, I owe Nicola much gratitude, as without him nothing would have been accomplished.

“Est quaderni prodire tenus, si non datur ultra” Horace (65–8 B.C.), Epist., 1, 1, 32 (At least we have done a first step)