Nov 22, 2006 5:34 pm US/Central
Brain Tumor Therapy Makes U.S. Debut In Chicago
Chicago Father Has 36 Electrodes Attached To Head At All Times
by Mary Ann Childers
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Daniel Torres started a new therapy for his brain tumor last week.
CBS
Doctors could soon have a new weapon to battle a very deadly form of cancer.
It looks like something out of a science fiction movie, but CBS 2 Medical Editor Mary Ann Childers reports on a treatment that may be the best hope to extend survival for some people with brain tumors.
Standard treatments that attack brain tumors also damage healthy cells and impact quality of life. But, a new electrical therapy attacks only cancer cells.
Chicagoan Daniel Torres, 51, is the first in the country to get it. Torres is a husband, father of four and a 3-year cancer survivor.
He suffers from the most deadly and aggressive form of brain cancer --
glioblastoma. Only 6 percent of patients survive as long as Torres has.
"Lots of times people live less than a year after they're diagnosed to have it," said Dr. Herbert Engelhard, a neurosurgeon at the
University of Illinois at Chicago.
One week ago, Torres became the first person in the United States to try an experimental treatment.
"He has faith and hope that it's going to work," said his wife, Sylvia Torres.
Doctors at UIC attached 36 electrodes to his shaved head.
"It seems like almost science fiction, but really there's a lot of science fact behind it," Engelhard said.
The low intensity electrical currents cause cancer cells in the brain to rupture as they divide, according to a video provided by device maker Novacure.
"An electrical field going right through those two cells can actually break them at the time they are about to divide," said Engelhard.
Engelhard's study will compare electrical therapy after standard treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation to those traditional treatments alone.
Two small, earlier trials overseas were promising.
"I don't want to say a melting away of the tumor, but the area that we count as being a tumor shrunk dramatically and in one patient it cleared up altogether," Engelhard said.
Doctors say it's not a cure, but has no side effects and can buy patients valuable, quality time.
"The survivals were at least double sometimes five times longer than would have been expected," Engelhard said.
Torres wears the electrodes 22 hours a day, and carries a portable battery pack wherever he goes.
It's a small inconvenience for the possibility of celebrating not only this Thanksgiving, but many more, with his family.
"His big wish is to live to see our kids grow," said Sylvia Torres.
Engelhard calls Torres's device a prototype.
If it works as well in this larger trial it may become much smaller, perhaps even implantable, in the future.
UIC and
Northwestern University are participating in this trial.
UIC
Dr. Herbert Engelhard
312-355-0334
Northwestern
Dr. Jeffrey Raizer
312-695-1363
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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