Electrical Field Treats Brain Cancer

amigoro writes "A device that specifically targets rapidly growing cancer cells with intermediate frequency electrical fields doubled the survival rates of patients with brain cancer, according to an article apperaring in PNAS. The device uses electrical fields to disrupt tumor growth by interfering with cell division of cancerous cells, causing them to stop proliferating and die off instead of dividing and growing. Healthy brain cells rarely divide and have different electrical properties than cancerous brain cells. This allows the device to target cancer cells without affecting the healthy cells. Essentially no device-related side effects were seenin the clinical trial."

Comments

from the article

[wizardforce]

At the time of publication, researchers found that among the 10 patients with recurring GBM treated with the Novo-TTF, the median length of time to disease progression was 26.1 weeks; progression free survival at six months was 50 percent; and median overall survival was 62.2 weeks. This is more than double the rates reported in historical data - approximately 9.5 weeks, 15.3%, and 29.3 weeks, respectively.
The ten patients involved in this study received treatment for a total of 280 weeks without a single treatment related adverse event. The only device related side effect seen was a mild to moderate contact dermatitis beneath the field delivering electrodes

this is an interesting application- for a long time it has been known that cancer has drastically different biochemistry [clearly seen on some MRI scans] so it stands to reason they might also have odd electrical properties as well. since the treatment is confined to the immediate area near electrods placed on the skin of the scull any other effects would be limited to that area as well.

A different mode of transportation

[AlpineR]

1) I have been battling cancer for three years; I'm pretty familiar with the methods and mechanisms of treatment.

2) I've read that it's a myth that cancer cells divide more quickly than healthy cells. The defect is that they continue dividing when they should sense that it's time to stop dividing. It's a matter of duration rather than rate.

3) There are many different kinds of chemotherapy. Some make hair fall out, some cause diarrhea, some cause nausea, some damage skin, some make nerves go whacky. I've had all of those side effects from one drug or another. There are BIG differences between chemotherapies which must mean there are differences in their effect on cells.

4) Brain cancers are particulary troublesome because many drugs can't crossing the blood-brain barrier. Electromagnetism could be very useful where chemotherapy is ineffective.

5) Immunotherapy can be useful at slowing tumor growth or making cancer cells more susceptible to chemotherapy. But immunotherapy alone often isn't enough, and immunotherapy can have very nasty side effects. I suffered much pain and scarring from Erbitux, a drug that blocks epithelial growth factor, but it didn't do a lick of good for my colon cancer.

6) A trial on ten patients won't be the basis for widespread application of this method. But positive results in a human trial is far ahead of many of the supposed breakthroughs that we read about on Slashdot.

AlpineR