Doctor given 24 months to live reveals how she reversed her cancer with breakthrough therapy

Dr. Tina Willits was told she had just 24 months to live after being diagnosed with stage four breast cancer.

The mother-of-five’s disease was ‘all over the place’, with three golf ball-sized tumors in her chest and cancerous growths in her ribs, spine, lymph nodes and legs.

She was told it was too advanced for a mastectomy and was given chemotherapy at the end of care and said to ‘enjoy the time you have left’.

That was almost three years ago, and against all odds, the 53-year-old from Florida is now completely cancer-free thanks to a revolutionary new cancer therapy that uses cold gases and the body’s own cells to freeze and fight tumors.

Dr. Willits – a data science researcher and lecturer – has since been in remission.

She told DailyMail.com: ‘When my cancer was discovered I had already passed stage four and was too far gone for a mastectomy.

“So they gave me what they called palliative chemotherapy with just one drug, and not the most difficult drug for the cancer either.”

She continued, “I was devastated, but I also thought, no, I wasn’t okay with that diagnosis. I felt I had to do something.

‘I was just determined that I didn’t want to live my life with this cancer, even if they could stop it from progressing. I didn’t want that, I just wanted it gone.’

Dr. Willits is not a doctor, but earned the title after earning a doctorate in educational technology from Pepperdine University in California.

The mother-of-five was diagnosed in March 2022 after going to the doctor complaining of a lump in her breast.

Doctors weren’t concerned at first, believing the lump was related to her breast implants, which she had had for 17 years.

She had a mammogram in October 2021, which showed no cause for concern.

But after surgery to replace her implants in early 2022, she woke up to find them removed and drains attached to her breasts. Doctors suspected cancer.

They referred her to an oncologist, who after tests and scans diagnosed breast cancer.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the U.S., with approximately 270,000 women diagnosed with the disease each year. A total of 42,000 women die from the disease every year. Cases are most common in women aged 50 and over.

Dr. Willits’ cancer was HER2 positive, which accounts for about 20 percent of all diagnoses, and she had no family history of the disease.

Dr. Willits underwent four rounds of chemotherapy before seeking alternative treatment at the Williams Cancer Institute.

She discovered the institute in June after reading a book by its founder, Dr. Jason Williams, about his new cancer treatment.

She contacted the team just before July 4 and they said they could help her. The institute sent her a list of supplements to start with and advised her to avoid sugar.

Researchers suggest that some supplements may help reduce inflammation in cancer patients, while other papers have pointed to the idea that cancer cells are fueled by sugar – meaning eating less can slow their growth.

Once under the institute’s care, she began a treatment regimen that has not yet been fully approved in the US.

It is for this reason that the center carries out the treatments in Mexico.

They also say it can save patients money, with some chemotherapy drugs costing $10,000 in the US and costing as little as $1,000 domestically.

The first in the treatment regimen was cryoablation, in which doctors insert a small metal probe through the skin and into the tumor, where extremely cold gases are released directly into the mass to kill the cells.

She then received immunotherapy, with Dr. Willits had eight drugs administered directly into her tumor, which doctors say can prompt the immune system to recognize cancer cells as a threat and trigger an immune response.

Dr. Williams, the center’s founder, developed the treatment regimen over several years and claims it could be a better way to treat cancer.

He said he is currently trialling the treatment in difficult-to-treat prostate cancer patients.

Early results show that more than 50 percent of patients are still alive, he said. By comparison, the five-year survival rate for patients with stage four prostate cancer is 34 percent.

He did not reveal how long the study lasted or how many rounds of treatment the patients had received.

For breast cancer patients, there are no statistics on the survival rate of those who visit the Williams Center.

Overall, statistics show that the survival rate for stage four breast cancer patients is 31 percent.

Dr. Willits said she was shocked when she got the results of her six-week post-treatment scan at the Williams Cancer Institute, which showed the disease appeared to be gone.

‘There weren’t any, no tumors. They just completely disappeared,” she told DailyMail.com. ‘All metastases (cancerous tumors outside the breast) were completely healed and the cancer in my lymph nodes was no longer there.’

After the treatment, she received four more rounds of chemotherapy. She still undergoes PET scans every six months to ensure the cancer does not return.

So far, the cancer has not been detected in her body since the treatment, but she must wait five years for clear results before she can be declared cancer-free.

The treatment was not covered by insurance and cost $65,000, which she said she was able to pay for by cashing out her life insurance policy.

Dr. Willits is sharing her story to raise awareness about the treatment and encourage more medical professionals to refer cancer patients to Dr. Williams.

She said that when they returned to Florida and saw her first oncologists, they were surprised by her progress but never asked what treatment she had received.

“These oncologists won’t even think about other treatments,” she said. ‘They just didn’t want to know what I was doing.

“People have asked me who cured my cancer, and I said it was God and Doctor Williams.”

Dr. Willits is now making the most of her life since the diagnosis, and says she has gained a new appreciation for it.

She’s traveled to Honduras and Colorado, tried mountain biking and trained to run a 5K for breast cancer awareness this month. She can also spend her time caring for her disabled mother and her new grandchildren.

“I wouldn’t appreciate this life if I hadn’t gone through the cancer,” she said.

‘No one on their deathbed says I wish I had worked more or gotten that job. You all say I wish I had spent more time with my parents and kids or gone to the place I always wanted to go.”