Two new ways for speedy and painless cancer treatment
THE battle to conquer this killer disease
is on. Scientists work relentlessly to
devise better ways of diagnosing and
eliminating deadly tumours. Recently,
two groups of researchers, working separately, made yet another breakthrough
in this direction, reports New Scientist,
Vol 148, No 1998. Two techniques were
developed - one for better detection
and the other for painless elimination of turnours.
x-rays and other imaging
techniques can falter in detecting cancerous tissues. A surgeon thus relies on his sense of touch while removing turnours
to look for those additional
tumours that these detecting
techniques overlook. "A turnour may be 10 times as stiff as
the surrounding tissue, but
only 10 per cent darker in an x-
ray or magnetic resonance
image", says Richard Ehman at
the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota,
USA. The new technique
developed by Ehinan promises
better detection of lumps.
Using a loudspeaker, magnetic resonance imaging and
some computer software, tissue
stiffness can be detected without surgery now. A mechanical
wave is generated through the
tissue using an acoustic speaker. The principle used being
that stiffer the material is, the
longer the sound's wavelength 09
becomes as it passes through.
The advancing compression
waves can be visualised using magnetic
resonance. The software used can turn
this data into a 3D picture in 10 to 15
seconds. And stiffer the tissue, the darker it appears to be. "The potential sensitivity of the technique gives it a lot of
power" that leaves no chance for the
cancerous tissue to camouflage itself.
The treatment of cancer is agonising
for patients. Surgery disfigures the
patient and large doses of drugs cause
nausea, hair loss and suppressed
immune response. Comparatively, the
other technique devised by the
researchers can be regarded as a boon
for cancer victims. Torturous side
effects of cancer therapy can be circumvented now by literally shocking
turnours to death.
Using electrical pulses to pump
anticancer drugs into tumours is surely
a novel method. Researchers at the
California-based Genetronics company
succeeded in developing such a system
that proved its efficacy during recent tri-
als. At the Florida-based Moffit Cancer
Center in the USA, trials were conducted
on 27 patients with aggressive skin can-
cer. The treatment successfully and
painlessly removed skin tumours that
had failed to respond to conventional chemotherapy.
The procedure involves injecting an
anticancer drug around the tumour aJ
simultaneously subjecting it to a massive pulse of electrical energy. Nee
electrodes strategically positionle
around the tumour dispense both ele
tricity and drugs into it. The anticancl,
drugs slip inside through pores in t
walls of the cells that are temporari$
opened by the electrical pul
Subsequently, the tumour shril:
forms a scab and falls off, leaving fre
skin underneath that hea
I
completely.
Besides being painless, A
procedure can remo
turnours "with doses of toXVO
drugs 400 times smaller th
would be needed if the dru
were injected into the blood-
stream".The treatment is A
less harmful to normal ceIlL
than conventional chemotheig
apy. Moreover, it is less traumatic. Surgical treatmelc
would involve removing the
whole or a part of the org4
afflicted with cancer. "All you
feel is a little tingle", says LOC
Crandell, the president of
Genetronics. With the elec
trodes applying a potential of
around 1.2 kilovolts per cele
timetre of skin, care has to be
taken that the electric pulse C
carefully controlled to prevent
damage to the normal cells.
Can this technology treat
larger, internal turnout"
Genetronics is hopeful that a-
can, after some modificatio"O
The aim is to provide surgeons a kchole technique where the electrodes
'walk around' the tumours. Hav,
treated skin cancer successfuIr
researchers at Genetronics are currt
working to make it viable for treati@
larger, internal turnours. Hopefully, thW--
anticancer system shall be ready for to
tine use in 1998 after further modifijp
tions and clinical trials.
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