- Jul 28, 2016
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Featured
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This is really different and exciting!
Using low intensity electric fields for treating cancer. These are Tumor Treating Fields or TFFs. The summary on the Ted talk below is excellent. It has visuals of cells dividing in and out of the fields as well as pictures of patients wearing the devices and going about their day and a patient talking about he feels about his treatment.
They also talk about how proteins (which are charged molecules) are lined up to create new cells. This is normal though the process goes awry with cancer. The fields disrupt this process so that the rapidly dividing cells (ie the cancer cells) can't divide successfully. Non dividing cells remain unaffected.
Side effects include rashes and... well, rashes. Compare that to chemotherapy or radiation therapy!
It's really interesting to read some of the articles where arguments are made as to how electric fields can possibly make such a difference. What? Something so subtle? How could it ever be anything but mumbo jumbo? I grin to see the confusion; the same arguments that have been used for so long to suggest that treatments like reiki or any energy medicine (which are basically impossible to do a definitive scientific trial with for various reasons) could ever make a difference are really challenged here. The article below is a great example.
The device showed a 31% increase in survival, an 61% increase in tumor free survival and, very importantly, the side effect profile is: rashes... without all the fatigue, nausea and other potentially deadly effects from the current standard therapies. This means patients survived a few months longer with the TFF treatment than with standard treatment. There are the usual discussions about how the trials so far are not perfectly definitive, for example, because there was no sham treatment (to hide from patients + researchers who had treatment with TFFs and who did not) so it could have been the placebo effect that increased survival. Well if that is the case, yippee for placebo! I like the reply to this that "this is an unfair criticism. Neither prior or current radiotherapy trials nor trials of temozolomide and many other chemotherapy drugs were placebo controlled, he explained"
Another argument is that the patients who had the improved survival may have done so because, on average, they recieved one dose less of the standard chemotherapy treatment. I had to laugh at that since it seems such a reach! Better survival may have been because they received less of the standard treatment? What does that say about the standard treatment?
Not everybody offered the device as an experimental treatment wanted to try it, some saying that the devices made them feel like they 'appeared ill' and this put them off. However, for those who chose to try it, this is my favorite comment: "It takes getting used to, but the ones who are on it are addicted to it and love it, and it is hard to get them off therapy,"
The best part of this treatment, to my mind, other than it offering longer survival, is that patients get whatever length of extra time without the devastating side effects of chemo or radiation.
I can't wait until the focus really shifts from arguing whether and how it could work to figuring out the best way to deliver this kind of treatment to get better results, including ourtight cures for what are currently considered incurable cancers; again, without the devastating side effects.
www.medscape.com
There are already several ways these fields are being delivered: they include electrode 'caps' or padded 'hats' for brain cancer, padded vests and backpacks for tumors around the trunk, like lung cancer and beds (2 AA batterires required; 'batteries not included'
). The idea is to get the fields delivered locally where they are needed at the cancer site in a wearable, comfortable way.
This is the company which was founded, according to the Ted Talk, by the inventor of the fields: https://www.novocure.com/our-therapy/
They currently seem to have offices in Europe, USA, Japan and Israel. Taking a quick look at their job postings, they seem to be growing.
Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy has also been used for treating poorly healing broken bones (the vets took on this device first). The same article mentions its use also for treatment of depression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsed_electromagnetic_field_therapy
Perhaps the most interesting comment in this article is this one "Although electricity's potential to aid bone healing was reported as early as 1841, it was not until the mid-1950s that scientists seriously studied the subject. "...
Using low intensity electric fields for treating cancer. These are Tumor Treating Fields or TFFs. The summary on the Ted talk below is excellent. It has visuals of cells dividing in and out of the fields as well as pictures of patients wearing the devices and going about their day and a patient talking about he feels about his treatment.
They also talk about how proteins (which are charged molecules) are lined up to create new cells. This is normal though the process goes awry with cancer. The fields disrupt this process so that the rapidly dividing cells (ie the cancer cells) can't divide successfully. Non dividing cells remain unaffected.
Side effects include rashes and... well, rashes. Compare that to chemotherapy or radiation therapy!
It's really interesting to read some of the articles where arguments are made as to how electric fields can possibly make such a difference. What? Something so subtle? How could it ever be anything but mumbo jumbo? I grin to see the confusion; the same arguments that have been used for so long to suggest that treatments like reiki or any energy medicine (which are basically impossible to do a definitive scientific trial with for various reasons) could ever make a difference are really challenged here. The article below is a great example.
The device showed a 31% increase in survival, an 61% increase in tumor free survival and, very importantly, the side effect profile is: rashes... without all the fatigue, nausea and other potentially deadly effects from the current standard therapies. This means patients survived a few months longer with the TFF treatment than with standard treatment. There are the usual discussions about how the trials so far are not perfectly definitive, for example, because there was no sham treatment (to hide from patients + researchers who had treatment with TFFs and who did not) so it could have been the placebo effect that increased survival. Well if that is the case, yippee for placebo! I like the reply to this that "this is an unfair criticism. Neither prior or current radiotherapy trials nor trials of temozolomide and many other chemotherapy drugs were placebo controlled, he explained"
Another argument is that the patients who had the improved survival may have done so because, on average, they recieved one dose less of the standard chemotherapy treatment. I had to laugh at that since it seems such a reach! Better survival may have been because they received less of the standard treatment? What does that say about the standard treatment?
Not everybody offered the device as an experimental treatment wanted to try it, some saying that the devices made them feel like they 'appeared ill' and this put them off. However, for those who chose to try it, this is my favorite comment: "It takes getting used to, but the ones who are on it are addicted to it and love it, and it is hard to get them off therapy,"
The best part of this treatment, to my mind, other than it offering longer survival, is that patients get whatever length of extra time without the devastating side effects of chemo or radiation.
I can't wait until the focus really shifts from arguing whether and how it could work to figuring out the best way to deliver this kind of treatment to get better results, including ourtight cures for what are currently considered incurable cancers; again, without the devastating side effects.
Tumor-Treating Fields: Significant Survival in Glioblastoma
For patients with glioblastoma, survival was significantly improved through use of a device that delivers tumor-treating fields to the brain. Patients also received standard chemotherapy.
www.medscape.com
There are already several ways these fields are being delivered: they include electrode 'caps' or padded 'hats' for brain cancer, padded vests and backpacks for tumors around the trunk, like lung cancer and beds (2 AA batterires required; 'batteries not included'
). The idea is to get the fields delivered locally where they are needed at the cancer site in a wearable, comfortable way.
Tumor Treating Fields (TTF) Electrical Cancer Therapy | Saisei Immunotherapy Clinics
Treating cancer with low-intensity electrical fields to suppress cancer cell proliferation.
www.saisei-mirai.or.jp
This is the company which was founded, according to the Ted Talk, by the inventor of the fields: https://www.novocure.com/our-therapy/
They currently seem to have offices in Europe, USA, Japan and Israel. Taking a quick look at their job postings, they seem to be growing.
Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy has also been used for treating poorly healing broken bones (the vets took on this device first). The same article mentions its use also for treatment of depression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsed_electromagnetic_field_therapy
Perhaps the most interesting comment in this article is this one "Although electricity's potential to aid bone healing was reported as early as 1841, it was not until the mid-1950s that scientists seriously studied the subject. "...
