Ethanol: A Lethal Injection For Tumors (acsh.org)

Scientists have known for some time that ethanol can kill cancer cells, but several limitations held it back from becoming a broadly used treatment. A team at Duke University has recently developed a new type of ethanol solution that can be injected directly into a variety of tumors to potentially offer a new, safe, and cheap form of cancer treatment. From the article: The authors were already aware of a therapy known as ethanol ablation. If ethanol (the type of alcohol found in your favorite adult beverages) is injected into a tumor, it destroys proteins and causes the cells to dehydrate and die. Ethanol ablation is used to treat one type of liver cancer, and its success rate is similar to that of surgery. Better yet, it costs less than $5 per treatment. Ethanol ablation faces several limitations. First, it only works well for tumors that are surrounded by a fibrous capsule. Second, it requires large amounts of ethanol, which can damage nearby tissue as it leaks out. And third, it requires multiple treatments. To overcome these hurdles, the authors mixed ethanol with ethyl cellulose, creating a solution that when injected into the watery environment of a tumor turns into a gel, which remains close to the injection site. After they practiced injecting their solution into imitation tumors (what they called "mechanical phantoms"), the authors turned to a hamster model. The team induced the formation of oral cancer (specifically, squamous cell carcinoma) in hamster cheek pouches by rubbing them with a carcinogen called DMBA. After about 22 weeks, tumors (without capsules) formed. In the control group, tumors were injected with pure ethanol. The results were not good. After seven days, 0 of 5 tumors regressed completely. (Tumors injected with a large amount of ethanol -- four times the volume of the original tumor -- performed better: 4 of 12 regressed completely.) The results for the ethanol gel were far superior. After seven days, 6 of 7 tumors regressed completely. (By the eighth day, all 7 tumors were gone, for a cure rate of 100%.)

Comments

Vodka jello shots cure cancer?

[ka9dgx]

So, if I may... does this mean sterile vodka jello shots could be used to kill cancer?

Re:Only a very small sample

[Kjella]

I'll wait until they've done a much larger properly blinded test.

If I had terminal cancer I'd take highly experimental over certain death, you're only risk averse when it usually ends well. When it'll end badly you're ready for any "Hail Mary" save. Not that I'd try obvious snake oil and superstition, but any reasonable experiment I'd be in on... seems like the worst that can happen here is that you get mighty drunk, granted I've had bad hangovers but I'd rather go out drunk as a skunk than wait for the cancer to get me.

Dumb Scientists

[Anonymous Coward]

Not contained.
Well you can paint inject glue around the tumor, and you can restrict cancer blood vessels to increase poorer supply for hungry tumors. You can inject into the middle, and as it shrinks - repeat the process - as already done with radioactive mini beads, or injecting liquid nitrogen.
I'm sure time release capsules has been researched. Then there is powdered alcohol to play with. See black salve.

Old School

[Anonymous Coward]

Very likely to be idiotic, ineffective, and dangerous to patients and other living things!
As a professor of anesthesiology and neurological surgery, I have seen on rare occasions,
surgeons pour absolute alcohol (100% ethanol, i.e., 200 proof) into the bed of an excised
tumor in the abdomen. It works poorly and is dangerous. There are no decent studies
demonstrating improved outcome for the patient. Indeed the alcohol is toxic not just to
tumors, but to ALL tissue and to ALL cells. It denatures (unfolds) proteins. Thats why histologists and pathologists use it to "FIX" tissue for microscope slides. What it does to the
stomach and liver is a story for another day.

I have also seen an idiot surgeon use an electrosurgical (Bovie) cautery on a bleeding blood
vessel right after pouring in the EtOH. Woosh! There went the patient in a ball of blue flame!

Re: In the great words of Homer Simpson

[swillden]

"Ethanol ablation is used to treat one type of liver cancer" -- oh the irony.

I suppose it's ironic in cases where the liver cancer was caused by alcohol, but that's not normally the case. Liver cancer is usually secondary, having metastatized from cancer elsewhere in the body. And the reason ethanol ablation is used on that particular type of cancer is precisely because the liver -- unlike most tissues in the body -- can tolerate ethanol leakage, since breaking down ethanol is one of its functions.

So, really not very ironic.