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 ‘everywhere,’ with three golf-ball sized tumors in her breast and cancerous masses in her ribs, spine, lymph nodes and legs.
She was told it was too advanced for a mastectomy and was placed on end-of-care chemotherapy and told to ‘enjoy the time you have left.’
That was nearly 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 teacher — has been in remission ever since.
She told DailyMail.com: ‘When my cancer was detected, it was pretty past a stage four diagnosis and I was too far gone for a mastectomy.
‘So they put me on what they called palliative chemotherapy with only one drug, and not the hardest drug against the cancer either.’
Tina Willits, now 53 years old and from Florida, was given just 24 months to live after she was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. But the mother-of-five is still here 31 months on and cancer-free. She is pictured above holding one of her grandchildren
She continued: ‘I was devastated, but I was also like no, I was not ok with that diagnosis. I felt I had to do something.
‘I was just really determined that I did not want to live my life with this cancer, even if they could stop it progressing, I didn’t want that, I just wanted it gone.’
Dr Willits is not a medical doctor, but gained the title after earning a Doctor of Education in instructional technology from Pepperdine University in California.
The mother-of-five was diagnosed in March 2022 after going to doctors complaining of a lump on her breast.
Doctors were initially unconcerned, believing the lump was linked to her breast implants she had had in 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 to find them removed and drains attached to her breasts. Doctors suspected cancer.
They referred her to an oncologist, who diagnosed her with breast cancer following tests and scans.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in the US, with about 270,000 women diagnosed with the disease every year. A total of 42,000 women die from the disease annually. Cases are most common among women 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.
DrWillits is pictured above on her wedding day, and before her diagnosis. She credits her survival to a therapy that involved freezing her tumor and targeting it with immunotherapy drugs
Dr Willits went through four rounds of chemotherapy before she sought alternative treatment at the Williams Cancer Institute.
She discovered the institute in June after reading a book by its founder Dr Jason Williams on his novel cancer treatment.
She made contact with the team just before July 4th, and they said they would be able to help her. The institute sent her a list of supplements to begin taking and advised her to avoid sugar.
Researchers suggest some supplements can help to reduce inflammation in cancer sufferers, while other papers have pointed to the idea that cancer cells are fueled by sugar — meaning that eating less can slow their growth.
Once under the care of the institute, she started a treatment regimen that is not yet fully approved in the US.
It is because of this that the center carries out the treatments in Mexico.
They also say it can save patients money, with some chemotherapy drugs priced at $10,000 in the US costing only $1,000 in the country.
First in the treatment regimen was cryoablation — which sees doctors insert a small metal probe through the skin and into the tumor where extremely cold gasses are released directly into the mass to kill its cells.
She then received immunotherapy, during which 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 Willits is now running a marathon for breast cancer. She is pictured above at a breast cancer awareness event
Dr Williams, who founded the center, developed the treatment regimen over several years, and argues it could offer a better way to treat cancer.
He said he is currently running a trial of the treatment in hard-to-treat prostate cancer patients.
Early results show more than 50 percent of patients are still alive, he said. For comparison, the five-year survival rate for patients with stage four prostate cancer is 34 percent.
He did not reveal how long the study had been going or how many rounds of treatment the patients had received.
For breast cancer patients, there is no statistic on the survival rate for those who visit the Williams Center.
Overall, statistics show the survival rate for stage four breast cancer patients is 31 percent.
Dr Willits said she was shocked to get the results from her six-week scan after the treatment with the Williams Cancer Institute, which revealed the disease appeared to be gone.
‘There were none, no tumors. They were just completely gone,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘All the metastasis (cancerous growths outside the breast) had completely healed, and the cancer in my lymph nodes was no longer there.’
After the treatment, she had another four 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 needs to wait for five years of 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 afford via cashing in her life insurance policy.
Dr Willits said the diagnosis has left her with a much deeper appreciation for life
Dr Willits is sharing her story to raise awareness of the treatment and to urge more medical professionals to refer cancer patients to Dr Williams.
She said that upon returning to Florida and seeing her initial oncologists, they were surprised by her progress but never asked what treatment she had had.
‘These oncologists will not even give a thought to other treatments,’ she said. ‘They just did not want to know what I did.
‘People have asked me who cured my cancer, and I answered it was God and Dr Williams.’
Dr Willits is now making the most of her life since the diagnosis, and says she has a new appreciation for it.
She has traveled to Honduras and to Colorado, tried mountain biking and has trained to run a 5k this month for breast cancer awareness. She is also able to spend her time caring for her handicapped mom, and her new grandchildren.
‘I wouldn’t appreciate life like this if I had not gone through the cancer’, she said.
‘No one on their death bed says I wish I had worked more or got that job, you all say I wish I had spent more time with my parents and kids or gone to that place I had always wanted to.’
