The brain tumor that threatened to kill Lupe Carrillo is now being used to help him survive.

The 61-year-old Oxnard man, diagnosed with a cancer that carries a 98 percent fatality rate, is being treated with an experimental vaccine made of his own white blood cells and amino acids from the tumor.

Like a search-and-rescue dog trained to follow a scent, the amino acids are used in a UCLA clinical trial to teach Carrillo's immune system to recognize and fight cells from his specific cancer.

"What this is supposed to do is keep the tumor from coming back," said Carmen Carrillo, Lupe's wife.

The doctor who developed the vaccine said that the tumor could re-emerge, and that the treatment is still unproven.

But the personalized treatment has helped bring hope to a family blindsided by a nightmare.

Lupe Carrillo worked for 36 years building prototype machinery for 3M and then Imation in Camarillo. He and his wife were born and raised in Oxnard. Married for 38 years, they live in a comfortable home where a rack of putters and golf clubs leans against a wall. A big-screen television is usually tuned to ESPN.

When telling the story of the cancer, Carmen Carrillo does most of the talking, with Lupe offering observations about various tests showing that he's still doing well. "That's a big plus," he said repeatedly.

They have three adult sons, all of whom live within 20 minutes of their parents. As a family, they focus intently on the big pluses.

"If we think just negative, negative, we'll bring ourselves down," Carmen Carrillo said.

About a year ago, her husband was having trouble with his equilibrium, like a drunk motorist who can't walk a straight line. Doctors said it might be vertigo or maybe a parasite acquired on a golfing excursion to Mexico.

Tests showed a small shadow on the left side of his temple. Part of his brain had been transformed into a glioblastoma, the most fatal kind of brain cancer. Although few details have been released about Sen. Edward Kennedy's cancer, specialists speculate that he was diagnosed with the same kind of tumor.

Permanent damage feared

With treatment, people may survive 18 months. Without treatment, they are fortunate to live half that long.

Carrillo's tumor bordered on the part of the brain that controls speech, memory and peripheral vision. Neurosurgeons worried that if they tried to remove the tumor, they could do permanent damage.

"He could end up blind or he could lose his speech," Carmen Carrillo said.

The Carrillos reacted as a family, parents and sons researching the cancer on the Internet and in interviews with doctors.

They found Dr. Linda Liau, a neurosurgeon with UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, who specializes in brain cancers.

She performed a magnetic resonance imaging scan during which Carrillo was asked to speak and move so that exact borders of his language center could be identified. And on Aug. 9, she surgically removed the tumor.

"She said, You know what? I got it all,'" said Lupe Carrillo, a smile creeping across his face. "I said, Thank you.' I shook her hand."

The tumors often come back. Carrillo started radiation and chemotherapy. About four months after surgery, he started receiving a vaccine called DCVax developed by Liau.

Blood cells that guard the body's immune system are placed in a culture where they ingest amino acids from the tumor in a process that removes any live cancer cells. The blood cells are injected into the body, just under the skin of the arm, and are designed to work as a patrol trained to identify Carrillo's specific cancer.

The medicine is a part of a breed of cancer drugs tailored to individual patients.

"The whole premise behind it is that cancers are different for every individual. It's not going to be one size fits all," Liau said, noting that the deadly nature of brain cancers compels the new research. "Because of the grim prognosis of this disease, if we don't do something different, 98 percent of these patients die within five years."

Plays golf up to three times a week

Carrillo has progressed from not being able to do more than hit a few balls at a driving range to playing 18 holes of golf two or three times a week. Friends tell him that he looks so good, they don't believe that he ever had cancer, until he shows them the incision in his skull that looks like a question mark.

"So far, he's doing well," said Liau, noting that the drug is still at least two years from receiving federal approval, and its effectiveness remains a theory, although some patients have survived several years. "It's not proven yet. Hopefully, it's going to improve survival, but we don't know that for sure."

The Carrillos focus on golf, family and their confidence in doctors who now talk not in terms of months but years.

They don't exactly live day to day, Lupe Carrillo said. They live 60 days to 60 days. MRIs are taken every two months and so far have shown no signs of cancer.

"So far, so good," he said.