Ethanol: A Lethal Injection For Tumors (acsh.org) 78
Scientists have known for some time that ethanol can kill cancer cells, but several limitations held it back from becoming a broadly used treatment. A team at Duke University has recently developed a new type of ethanol solution that can be injected directly into a variety of tumors to potentially offer a new, safe, and cheap form of cancer treatment. From the article: The authors were already aware of a therapy known as ethanol ablation. If ethanol (the type of alcohol found in your favorite adult beverages) is injected into a tumor, it destroys proteins and causes the cells to dehydrate and die. Ethanol ablation is used to treat one type of liver cancer, and its success rate is similar to that of surgery. Better yet, it costs less than $5 per treatment. Ethanol ablation faces several limitations. First, it only works well for tumors that are surrounded by a fibrous capsule. Second, it requires large amounts of ethanol, which can damage nearby tissue as it leaks out. And third, it requires multiple treatments. To overcome these hurdles, the authors mixed ethanol with ethyl cellulose, creating a solution that when injected into the watery environment of a tumor turns into a gel, which remains close to the injection site. After they practiced injecting their solution into imitation tumors (what they called "mechanical phantoms"), the authors turned to a hamster model. The team induced the formation of oral cancer (specifically, squamous cell carcinoma) in hamster cheek pouches by rubbing them with a carcinogen called DMBA. After about 22 weeks, tumors (without capsules) formed. In the control group, tumors were injected with pure ethanol. The results were not good. After seven days, 0 of 5 tumors regressed completely. (Tumors injected with a large amount of ethanol -- four times the volume of the original tumor -- performed better: 4 of 12 regressed completely.) The results for the ethanol gel were far superior. After seven days, 6 of 7 tumors regressed completely. (By the eighth day, all 7 tumors were gone, for a cure rate of 100%.)
it requires large amounts of ethanol (Score:3)
Dumb Scientists (Score:3, Interesting)
Not contained.
Well you can paint inject glue around the tumor, and you can restrict cancer blood vessels to increase poorer supply for hungry tumors. You can inject into the middle, and as it shrinks - repeat the process - as already done with radioactive mini beads, or injecting liquid nitrogen.
I'm sure time release capsules has been researched. Then there is powdered alcohol to play with. See black salve.
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Take THAT Judge Rockaway! It's cancer treatment now! So I spit on your court order to attend AA meetings!
Only a very small sample (Score:2)
Re:Only a very small sample (Score:5, Funny)
You'd have to use Methanol if you want a blinding test.
Re:Only a very small sample (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll wait until they've done a much larger properly blinded test.
If I had terminal cancer I'd take highly experimental over certain death, you're only risk averse when it usually ends well. When it'll end badly you're ready for any "Hail Mary" save. Not that I'd try obvious snake oil and superstition, but any reasonable experiment I'd be in on... seems like the worst that can happen here is that you get mighty drunk, granted I've had bad hangovers but I'd rather go out drunk as a skunk than wait for the cancer to get me.
Experimental treatement (Score:5, Informative)
If I had terminal cancer I'd take highly experimental over certain death, you're only risk averse when it usually ends well. When it'll end badly you're ready for any "Hail Mary" save. {...} but any reasonable experiment I'd be in on...
Also, from what I've heard (disclaimer: oncology is not my speciality), patient close to the end also tend to have altruistic views :
even if it doesn't end up saving *them personally*, taking an experimental treatment might still help advance the science and who knows who might end up being saved later thank to what was learned by this experimental treatment.
Some are thus happy to save any live, even if it ends up not being their own.
seems like the worst that can happen here is that you get mighty drunk, granted I've had bad hangovers but I'd rather go out drunk as a skunk than wait for the cancer to get me.
The doses needed to be injected without this "gel improvement" are usually massive.
It's not only getting drunk/hangover from what leaks in the general blood stream system.
It's alcohol still being at very high level nearby the tumor and destroying healthy tissue and organs around the tumor
(painful, problematic and potentially dangerous).
Akin to a badly calibrated radiation therapy.
i.e.: you're literally burning the patient in this failure mode (though think "chemical" burn rather than garden variety of fire)
The potential of this gel is similar to what computer modelling helped improve radiation therapy.
Making sure the treatment arrives exactly where it should, and is only working where needed.
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What on earth makes you think that computer modeling makes the radiation only arrive exactly where needed? That's just not how it works.
More exactly everything in the path of the beam gets a dose. By firing the beam from multiple angles so that the point of intersection is over the tumor you deliver a maximal dose to the tumor, and a minimal dose to the surrounding tissues.
Computer modeling using CT and NMR scans to plan the treatment can help to give a better treatment plan than using pen and paper.
However
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Very true. Sometimes people have serious side effects resulting from radiation burns. I'm not sure how much that has improved over the years, but it definitely was a problem with beam radiation at one time.
That said, in theory, there's no reason it couldn't be exact if you used directed high-power EM instead of ionizing radiation. You could use constructive interference
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The predicted result? Well-done tumor, medium-rare patient.
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Oh, yeah. I vaguely remember reading about that. If there's an antibody that can actually deliver the iron to the tumor, that's certainly a good approach. Then again, I always assumed that the main challenge was the lack of a reliable delivery mechanism that didn't affect healthy cells. If there's an antibody that can deliver the iron to the tumor, couldn't you just deliver a dose of a cyanide salt, an ATP inhibitor like DNP, a DNA-binding protein, or some similar poison and skip the EM entirely? Or,
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Something you can do by injection is cheaper and less traumatic than surgery; and alcohol may well be an agent with a nice combination of being amply lethal to cancer cells at high concentration; but pretty well tolerated by humans in modest concentrations(which would make any leaks from the tumor into surroun
In the great words of Homer Simpson (Score:5, Funny)
Re: In the great words of Homer Simpson (Score:4, Interesting)
"Ethanol ablation is used to treat one type of liver cancer" -- oh the irony.
I suppose it's ironic in cases where the liver cancer was caused by alcohol, but that's not normally the case. Liver cancer is usually secondary, having metastatized from cancer elsewhere in the body. And the reason ethanol ablation is used on that particular type of cancer is precisely because the liver -- unlike most tissues in the body -- can tolerate ethanol leakage, since breaking down ethanol is one of its functions.
So, really not very ironic.
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Alcohol, the cause of, and solution to all of life's problems.
Quoting comedian Rita Rudner:
They're trying to put warning labels on liquor saying, “Caution, alcohol can be dangerous to pregnant women.” That’s ironic. If it weren’t for alcohol, most women wouldn't even be that way.
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No way! (Score:2)
Re: No way! (Score:5, Insightful)
thats what it costs them. not what it costs you
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They are talking about the old version, which only works on some liver cancers and where regular ethanol is used.
And they are talking about the price of a syringe of ethanol.
5$ doesn't include labor costs, examinations and everything else needed for a successful cancer-killing injection.
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Yeah it's always the labor that gets you! The fix is $5 but the labor is $100,000.
Vodka jello shots cure cancer? (Score:4, Interesting)
So, if I may... does this mean sterile vodka jello shots could be used to kill cancer?
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Upon more googling.... it's more like a gelcap.
Vodka jello shots! (Score:3)
does this mean sterile vodka jello shots could be used to kill cancer?
For a punny understanding of "shots" - yeah that's exactly the idea.
And I'm sure that, although they'll never public admit it, the inventors got the idea while doing actual vodka jello (body?) shots at one of their medical students' wild party.
(ah.... brings fond memory of my studies...)
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does this mean sterile vodka jello shots could be used to kill cancer?
For a punny understanding of "shots" - yeah that's exactly the idea.
And I'm sure that, although they'll never public admit it, the inventors got the idea while doing actual vodka jello (body?) shots at one of their medical students' wild party.
(ah.... brings fond memory of my studies...)
Sounds like a lame medical student party. Where I come from they used ethanol and syringes. Which could even better explain where the idea came from.
Re:Stilll try explaining that to your kids (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, it's easier than explaining to them that you're working for Comcast.
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Oh, the irony! (Score:5, Funny)
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They'll get their plenty monies from the patented tumor capsule systems and substances. Meanwhile, the patented administration mechanisms, fees and licenses related to them are already under estimation in the financials for the pleasure of public healthcare systems everywhere.
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only $5 a treatment? how will pharm companies get rich off of that?
Alcohol Gel solution $5
Injection site cleaning (alcohol Swab) $950
Hypodermic needle - $1500
Hypodermic syringe - $2000
Autoclave charge - $4000
Pre-injection counseling - $600
Post injection counseling - $600
Alcohol Gel solution Packaging $30000
Band Aid - $100 Billable amount $39,755
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Easy, The FDA board for approving new drugs is ptretty much entirely run and funded by (and therefore owned by) the big pharma companies.
They will make sure only their version of the drug gets certified for human use, then they can charge whatever they like for it, and people with cancer WILL pay.
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Particularly with all the manufacturers of generics [mondaynightbrewing.com] out there.
Old School (Score:2, Interesting)
Very likely to be idiotic, ineffective, and dangerous to patients and other living things!
As a professor of anesthesiology and neurological surgery, I have seen on rare occasions,
surgeons pour absolute alcohol (100% ethanol, i.e., 200 proof) into the bed of an excised
tumor in the abdomen. It works poorly and is dangerous. There are no decent studies
demonstrating improved outcome for the patient. Indeed the alcohol is toxic not just to
tumors, but to ALL tissue and to ALL cells. It denatures (unfolds) prote
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I'm just going to add two thoughts:
First, "dangerous" early metastasizing tumors do not have capsule of fibrous tissue and this technique requires. Mostly it is the organ that the tumor is embedded in that has a capsule.
This is nice, the alcohol just kills the whole organ.
Second, why are they publishing this in Nature, and not a journal that clinicians actually read?
Possibly because the investigators are basic science guys who know nothing about cancer
or clinical medicine
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Lipomas? (Score:1)
I wonder if this would treat fatty tumors (lipomas)? Certainly not as pressing as cancer treatment, but they can be quite painful and require surgery.
GIST cancers (Score:2)
Great research. I wonder if this can be used to treat GIST cancers (gastrointestinal stromal tumors), in combination with other therapy (imatinib, surgery). GIST cancers are normally nodule surrounded by some sort of capsule around the tumour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]