Treatment of capillary brain cancer creates alternating electric fields

Glioblastoma is a form of malignant brain cancer and has the potential to lead to high mortality.

Currently, the main therapy is chemotherapy that can prolong the patient's life for a few months but also with side effects such as vomiting, weakness, pain, . and a special therapeutic medium The doctors reported the results of treatment at the Annual Clinical Tumor Research Conference in the US: taking a special hat called NovoTTF-100A on the patient's head to prevent tumor growth. This is an effective method to help prolong life and limit many unwanted side effects for patients with brain cancer.

In 2011, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the NovoTTF hat therapy . Through clinical trials, the hat is as effective as chemotherapy but has no side effects like previous methods. Recently, the team developed cap therapy NovoTTF published data on 457 patients who used the hat in the past. Accordingly, the average life of people with brain cancer has been increased to 9.6 months and possibly more. Without therapy, glial tumors will begin to work within 3 to 5 months.

Compared to previous cancer treatments, the hat NovoTTF has many differences: using electric current to prevent cell division (cell duplication). In fact, cancer can be simply described as uncontrolled cell division. During cell division, the chromosomes will be duplicated and move to the two poles of the cell to replicate. And the hat NovoTTF will create an alternating electric field that disturbs the electric field at the two poles of the cell so that it cannot be duplicated. As a result, these cells will die and be eliminated from the body according to the usual mechanisms. According to the researchers, patients will wear a NovoTTF hat within 18 hours a day to achieve the most effective.

On the other hand, compared with chemotherapy, the use of caps NovoTTF also helps patients feel more comfortable and gentle. The most obvious reaction when using the hat is only red marks similar to the rash spots left by the electrodes on the scalp. For chemotherapy, the patient will experience a rapid decrease in resistance, obvious changes in the body such as hair loss, constant nausea and vomiting, feeling weak, tired and even toxic. count on the heart.

However, having an electric field generator like NovoTTF 18 hours a day still creates an inconvenience to the patient. Imagine wearing a strange hat with a bunch of messy strings that would make it impossible for a sick person to step out of the house. Therefore, the next step of the research, the doctors have proposed the idea of ​​developing NovoTTF as a smart device to make patients more comfortable. This is likely to create a new wave of future wearable devices that will be developed in a way that is increasingly integrated into human health care.