Zapping tumors: Brain-cancer patients in a trial for a portable device that sends a weak electric field into the brain must wear electrodes almost constantly. One patient in a pilot clinical trial for the device, who still had cancer after radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery, experienced a complete recovery. The MRI at top shows a tumor on the left side of this patient’s brain before treatment. The MRI at bottom, taken after eight months of treatment, shows no tumor.
Yoram Palti, NovoCure (top image); Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (bottom MRIs)
Multimedia
A promising device uses electric fields to destroy cancer cells in the brain.
An Israeli company is conducting human tests for a device that uses weak electric fields to kill cancer cells but has no effect on normal cells. The device is in late-stage clinical trials in the United States and Europe for glioblastoma, a deadly brain cancer. It is also being tested in Europe for its effectiveness against breast cancer. In the lab and in animal testing, treatment with electric fields has killed cancer cells of every type tested.
The electric-field therapy was developed by Yoram Palti, a physiologist at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, who founded the company NovoCure to commercialize the treatment. Palti's electric fields cause dividing cancer cells to explode while having no significant impact on normal tissues. The range of electric fields generated by the device harms only dividing cells. And since normal cells divide at a much slower rate than cancer cells, the electric fields target cancer cells. "An Achilles' heel of cancer cells is that they have to divide," says Herbert Engelhard, chief of neuro-oncology in the department of neurosurgery at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
Even after chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery, about 85 to 90 percent of glioblastoma patients' cancer still progresses, and their survival rates are low, says Engelhard. He has about 10 glioblastoma patients enrolled in the trial, which is testing the unusual treatment in patients for whom all other approaches have failed. Engelhard says that the results are encouraging but that it's too early to comment on the treatment's efficacy.
The electric fields' different effects on normal and dividing cells mostly have to do with geometry. A dividing cell has what Palti calls "an hourglass shape rather than a round shape." The electric field generated by the NovoCure device passes around and through round cells in a uniform fashion. But the narrow neck that pinches in at the center of a dividing cell acts like a lens, concentrating the electric field at this point. This non-uniform electric field wreaks havoc on dividing cells. The electric field tears apart important biological molecules, such as DNA and the structural proteins that pull the chromosomes into place during cell division. Dividing cells simply "disintegrate," says Palti.
Palti, who for years has been studying the effect of electric fields on cancer and normal cells, says that he has verified this mechanism in computer models and experiments in the lab. "The physics are solid," says David Cohen, associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School.
Patients in the glioblastoma clinical trial wear the device almost constantly, carrying necessary components in a briefcase. A wire emerging from the briefcase connects to adhesive electrodes covering the skull. Alternating electric fields pass through the scalp, into the skull, and on to the brain. The Food and Drug Administration approved the device for late-stage clinical trials for glioblastoma following promising results from a pilot study in 10 patients, one of whom had a complete recovery.
A rabies-related virus seeks out and destroys tumors in the brain.
A computer model can predict which drugs a cancer patient will respond to best.
A new imaging system could help surgeons remove small but deadly traces of cancer.
Re: Electric Fields Kill Tumors
It won't be allowed in the U.S. because of the profits the doctors and drug companies make.
There are numerous other ways to destroy cancer cells and they have been forbidden.
Pappas has be using magnetic fields for years but it is considered "alternative". Here is a link to his site: http://www.papimi.gr/selections.htm
Re: Electric Fields Kill Tumors
I'm extremely skeptical of your analysis. Wouldn't a treatment like this be beneficial to the bottom line of HMOs? Plus, I'm not sure that cancer treatments account for a significant portion of doctor and drug company profits. I would think that drug companies profit more from their flagship drugs like Viagra, Cialis or Lipitor, not chemo-therapy drugs.
And a majority of doctors become doctors to help people, not to perpetuate disease so they can make money.
That may be the case with for-profit hospital chains, but even then I don't think you have a strong case. I could be wrong. I don't have any statistics.
Re: Electric Fields Kill Tumors
If doctors are so benevolent, why do they prescribe beta blockers and ACE inhibitors for high blood pressure? Magnesium and potassium work just as well for lowering blood pressure.
Guest (Tagamet)
"Magnesium and potassium work just as well for lowering blood pressure."
Not for everyone (I'm a great example). It would appear that your negative attitude would go far toward raising *your* blood pressure while weakening your immune system. (and yes, I'm a shrink)
Be well and God Bless.
Reminds me of reading about Royal Raymond Rife. In the 30s he invented a microscope that was able to see thousands of times more magnification that contemporary devices. It helped him learn the resonant frequencies of many different organisms, including some he identified as the causes of cancer. This knowledge led him to develop an amazing little machine that in a clinical trial with 16 stage 3 terminal cancer patients he cured 14 of them by treating them for 5 minutes every 3 days for 60 days. After some frequency adjustments he cured the remaining two. At first he was lauded, invited to speaking engagements and demonstrations; until the medical establishment and pharmaceutical industries realized what it would do to their bottom line. He was persecuted, arrested and demoralized by the selfishness of the people who are supposed to care.
Considering Nikola Tesla's research and his findings of energy transfer in systems resonating at the same frequency, perhaps it's an investigation that should be revived. Any takers in those brilliant engineers at MIT?
Why isn't electric current used to treat tumors? It would involve the insertion of two electrodes on either side of the tumor, a minimally invasive procedure, and could be used to kill a small local region of cells. If the current for some reason prefers to go around the tumor, what about inserting a probe into the center and putting a high frequency AC voltage on it to kill the cells around it? There must be a reason this isn't been done. Does anyone know anything about this?
Good point. In fact, GEIPE (Gentle Electrotherapy to Inhibit a Pivotal Enzyme) uses Direct Current to kill tumors. To know more, search on web for 'GEIPE'.
They have been screwing with our atmosphere, they
have developed the technology to make every tree
a cell tower (n buildings). So if trees can be
cell towers then the ground must be conductive
too. Since we are made of energy, then I assume
we must be conductive too.
You put this much of a communications field
of magnetic energy near our bodies, its going
to create those tumors.
How strange is it, that a certain amount of
EM energy will also make them go away.
Almost like they are causing them with energy
and they can erase the tumors with a different
output of an energy.
No one makes any money when everyone's healthy.
MRI's scan shown don't look like the same brain
In looking at the 2 brain MRI scans, the bottom
one does not seem to be of the same brain
compared to the top MRI scan.
Anyone else notice this difference?
Yes I know the tumor gone, but look at the
design of the lobes. They don't seem to make
the same formation lines.
i want 2 give seminar on dis topic so plz provide sme other information.
Re: Treating Cancer with electricity
You can get more information on this general topic, by searching on web for 'GEIPE' (Gentle Electrotherapy to Inhibit a Pivotal Enzyme) or for 'cancer' with 'electric current' or 'electric field'.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
On Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Feed
thirtygrand
3 Comments
RE: Electric Fields Kill Tumors
Once again this is a great article done by Katherine Bourzac. She has really did her research very thoroughly and to the facts. She get's a 3 1/2 star from my opinion. Good work Katherine.
Reply