A Magnetic Helmet Shrunk a Deadly Tumor In World-First Test (engadget.com) 157
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: As part of the latest neurological breakthrough, researchers used a helmet that generates a magnetic field to shrink a deadly tumor by a third. The 53-year-old patient who underwent the treatment ultimately passed away due to an unrelated injury. But, an autopsy of his brain showed that the procedure had removed 31 percent of the tumor mass in a short time. The test marked the first noninvasive therapy for a deadly form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma.
The helmet features three rotating magnets connected to a microprocessor-based electronic controller operated by a rechargeable battery. As part of the therapy, the patient wore the device for five weeks at a clinic and then at home with the help of his wife. The resulting magnetic field therapy created by the helmet was administered for two hours initially and then ramped up to a maximum of six hours per day. During the period, the patient's tumor mass and volume shrunk by nearly a third, with shrinkage appearing to correlate with the treatment dose. The inventors of the device -- which received FDA approval for compassionate use treatment -- claim it could one day help treat brain cancer without radiation or chemotherapy. "Our results... open a new world of non-invasive and nontoxic therapy...with many exciting possibilities for the future," said David S. Baskin, corresponding author and director of the Kenneth R. Peak Center for Brain and Pituitary Tumor Treatment in the Department of Neurosurgery at Houston Methodist Neurological Institute. Details of the procedure have been published in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Oncology.
The helmet features three rotating magnets connected to a microprocessor-based electronic controller operated by a rechargeable battery. As part of the therapy, the patient wore the device for five weeks at a clinic and then at home with the help of his wife. The resulting magnetic field therapy created by the helmet was administered for two hours initially and then ramped up to a maximum of six hours per day. During the period, the patient's tumor mass and volume shrunk by nearly a third, with shrinkage appearing to correlate with the treatment dose. The inventors of the device -- which received FDA approval for compassionate use treatment -- claim it could one day help treat brain cancer without radiation or chemotherapy. "Our results... open a new world of non-invasive and nontoxic therapy...with many exciting possibilities for the future," said David S. Baskin, corresponding author and director of the Kenneth R. Peak Center for Brain and Pituitary Tumor Treatment in the Department of Neurosurgery at Houston Methodist Neurological Institute. Details of the procedure have been published in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Oncology.
Thank god (Score:5, Funny)
For the covid vaccine making people magnetic. https://globalnews.ca/news/793... [globalnews.ca]
Re:Thank god (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: Thank god (Score:2)
anecdote != data (Score:5, Insightful)
Good signal though (Score:5, Informative)
Not concrete evidence by any stretch of the imagination, but the researchers have a compelling case for more study. They didn't have a control, but the tumor shrunk constantly when the magnets were employed. They stopped just the magnetic treatment for a couple of weeks, the tumor started growing again. When the magnets were used again, the tumor began shrinking once more.
These type of blastomas are almost always fatal, and, as this is a noninvasive treatment, it's absolutely worth trying out.
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Not concrete evidence by any stretch of the imagination, but the researchers have a compelling case for more study. They didn't have a control, but the tumor shrunk constantly when the magnets were employed. They stopped just the magnetic treatment for a couple of weeks, the tumor started growing again. When the magnets were used again, the tumor began shrinking once more.
Agreed. It's fucking fascinating. It also defies all logic. More study required.
These type of blastomas are almost always fatal, and, as this is a noninvasive treatment, it's absolutely worth trying out.
They are. And it's a particularly nasty way to watch someone go. I had the displeasure of going through it 4 years back with a family member.
The claim of non-toxicity makes me suspicious.
Obviously the treatment is toxic... to the tumor.
It is therefor quite bold to state that it's not toxic to the tissue that isn't a tumor. as that simply, generally, just isn't how cancer works.
Again, more study required.
Re:Good signal though (Score:4, Informative)
A similar device that has FDA approval says this:
"Its hypothesized mechanism of action involves disruption of tubulin dimers, mitotic spindles, and cell division by electric field-induced dipole alignment and dielectrophoresis"
In trying to convert that to English, it appears to me to mean that it disrupts and prevents cell division.
Re:Good signal though (Score:5, Informative)
> In trying to convert that to English, it appears to me to mean that it disrupts and prevents cell division
That's exactly it. Some years ago there was a similar device that used electrostatic fields, rather than magnetic, to accomplish similar effects.
Basically when a cell prepares to divide, it's made a copy of the DNA but needs to ensure that a complete copy of DNA ends up in each half after division. To accomplish this, internal rope-like structures are built to pull the DNA apart and towards either side of the division.
The theory goes that a sufficiently strong electromagnetic field can interfere with the building of these structures, causing mitosis to fail and resulting in cell death. Of course this will also kill healthy cells trying to divide, but the idea is that cancerous cells divide much more frequently and so are killed off faster than healthy tissues.
=Smidge=
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but the idea is that cancerous cells divide much more frequently and so are killed off faster than healthy tissues.
This is the exact "idea" behind chemotherapy.
If she has invented a form of magnetic chemotherapy, that would be fantastic. But you also don't get to claim that it's non-toxic.
Merely... Better localization to the toxicity.
Re:Good signal though (Score:5, Informative)
That's exactly it. Some years ago there was [news of and approval of] a similar device that used electrostatic fields, rather than magnetic, to accomplish similar effects.
Actually: It uses varying currents in coils to induce varying/moving magnetic fields in the head, which then induced varying electric fields in the cells and tissues. It's called Alternating Electric Field Therapy [wikipedia.org], a.k.a. "Tumor Treating Fields" or "TTFields",
It was invented and is manufactured by novocure [novocure.com] and marketed as Optune [optune.com]. The model for brain tumors consists of a cloth beanie with coils connected by a cable to a purse-sized electronic device.
This new device appears to be a way to get the same or a similar effect using motorized permanent magnets rather than magnetic coils to create the fields. (Reasonable, since the fields are low-frequency and rather simple so you don't need electronic speed. Using permanent magnets to create them and stored power only to change them could save a lot of battery power. The helmet will be 'way thicker, of course.)
Glioblastoma, being in the brain and metastatic (so you can't go after it surgically), behind the blood-brain barrier (greatly limiting what drugs can reach it), is very hard to treat. It pretty much killed everybody who got it with a median survival of five months. As I recall: As of the initial approval of the electromagnetic cap (FDA cut the experiments short and passed it because the results were so good) the cap didn't usually cure it. But when it didn't it could hold it off for a year or more. Current 5-year survival with (early models of) optune plus chemotherapy is 13%, vs. 5% on chemo alone.
Basically when a cell prepares to divide, it's made a copy of the DNA but needs to ensure that a complete copy of DNA ends up in each half after division. To accomplish this, internal rope-like structures are built to pull the DNA apart and towards either side of the division.
Cells use short-range electric fields for a lot of stuff, such as charge patterns for fitting molecules together correctly and potential differences across membranes handling energy (charging ATP, running flagilla) or switching ion channels on or off (e.g. to propagate nerve pulses). But long-range electric fields within the cell seem to be mostly used for aligning the mechanisms of cell division. (Given this key function, IMHO evolution would tend to avoid them otherwise, as early steps in evolving mechanisms using them for other things would tend to abort cell reproduction.)
The tubulin molecules that pull the chromosomes apart into two new nuclei have + and - charges on the ends. They assemble into bundles that follow the field lines, like iron filings on a magnet. The Septin molecules form a contractile ring to squeeze the two new cells apart. They have different patterns of charges and line up crosswise to the field at the midpoint, where the field lines are parallel.
The varying electric field apparently disrupts this in several ways [nature.com], including:
- Slowing or preventing cell division start
- Stalling spindle formation until the cell gives up - and ends up with a tetraploid rather than diploid chromosome set.
- Fouling up the segregation so the two daughter cells have the wrong compliment of chromosomes - some missing, some with extra copies.
- Breaking chromosomes (for instance by cutting the cell apart while the chromosome is not out of the middle when the ring squeezes), leading to improper repair.
(See the above link for more forms of havoc.) Most of these leave one or two cells that are non-functional or that then commit apoptosis (cell suicide).
Of course this will also kill healthy cells trying to divide, but the idea is that cancerous cells divide much more frequently
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Thaks for writing this. My first reaction was also that this must be quack, especially since the article was so light on details about the design of the device (unfortunately, this seems par for the course for medical devices) and how it was supposed to work. I suspected it must have something to do with induction of voltages in the brain, but then just using a resonant electronic device seems easier, more targetable, less power hungry, and more tolerable for the patient...
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The model for brain tumors consists of a cloth beanie with coils connected by a cable to a purse-sized electronic device.
This new device appears to be a way to get the same or a similar effect using motorized permanent magnets rather than magnetic coils to create the fields. (Reasonable, since the fields are low-frequency and rather simple so you don't need electronic speed. Using permanent magnets to create them and stored power only to change them could save a lot of battery power. The helmet will be 'way thicker, of course.)
There's actually a picture of the device in the linked paper.
https://www.houstonmethodist.o... [houstonmethodist.org]
It uses a cycling helmet and from the orientation of the motors, etc., it looks like the permanent magnets are at right angles inside those cylinders that are attached to it.
Finger in the air calculation of the drop off of magnetic fields with distance means those fields are going to be very weak by the time they get to the brain. Call me a skeptic if you like but I'm going to need a sample size bigger than one to
NMR vs. Magnets (Score:2)
The theory goes that a sufficiently strong electromagnetic field can interfere with the building of these structures
You mean like the 7T magnetic field they subjected the guy to multiple times in their NMR machine instead of the 1mT field their spinning magnets produced?
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The mechanism is well unerstood. It isn't the magnetic field that disrupts dividing cells. It's the moving electric field produced by the CHANGE of the magnetic field.
You get some of that for a very short time with an NMR - mainly when you
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The mechanism is well unerstood. It isn't the magnetic field that disrupts dividing cells. It's the moving electric field produced by the CHANGE of the magnetic field.
If it is well understood then why don't they use radio waves? These have oscillating E and B fields and are much easier to work with than mechanically oscillating magnets. Indeed, does this now mean that they have an established and understood link between oscillating fields and cancer and, if so, does this mean that all the claims from people saying that living under power lines, using mobile phones, being exposed to WiFi etc. actually have some validity? For that matter how does the incredibly low energ
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does this mean that all the claims from people saying that living under power lines, using mobile phones, being exposed to WiFi etc. actually have some validity?
I'm sure the sample size of one will be enough to convince them that it does.
(on the plus side we can tell them that it only kills tumors, it doesn't create them - they can avoid cancer by using their cellphone more often)
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The mechanism is well unerstood. It isn't the magnetic field that disrupts dividing cells. It's the moving electric field produced by the CHANGE of the magnetic field.
In that case: There are far better and more focused methods to create such a field than by strapping rotating magnets to a bicycle helmet.
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"Its hypothesized mechanism of action involves disruption of tubulin dimers, mitotic spindles, and cell division by electric field-induced dipole alignment and dielectrophoresis"
Jeezus...reminds me of this little nugget I found on YT awhile back.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
SMH.
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I can't even imagine how long that description would be without technobabble. For the right crowd, it's very concise.
Magnetic stirrer (Score:2)
The idea is that the device is magnetically stirring long structures in the cell while the cell is trying to sort it self to successfuly divide.
It‘s similar to a chemotherapy in such as is tries to interfere with rapidly dividing cells.
Most of the cells in the adult brain don‘t divide very often, we just recently learned that they do at all. Glioblastoma cells however divide brutally fast. It would be wonderful if this works.
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That's the similar device using magnets. The patent application on this one seems to be about disrupting/damaging mitochondria. So there would probably be a lot more collateral damage even if it is targeted, but the two treatments could potentially be delivered simultaneously by a combined device. Let's hope they work together rather than compete because multi-pronged approaches generally work better.
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That's why their survival rate is so low. They're generally inoperable, and not successfully treatable.
If indeed this does give us a working chemotherapy analogue, it will at the very least drastically improve survival rates of glioblastomas, which are currently somewhere around "you won't."
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They are proposing a mode of operation, an ex vivo experiment that at least is plausible to this layman and a reason to try it on exactly this kind of cancer in this region.
I hope that they are onto something. There is an unfortunate number of candidates to try this method on and the results should come in quite quickly.
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"FDA" doesn't mean squat. They're only there to prevent it from killing people (which it won't).
Re:Good signal though (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I'm glad this matter is settled. Joce640k says this can't work, so we can stop wasting time on it and move on.
If people like you were in charge we'd all still be living in caves. Maybe you should crawl back into yours for a while and leave this to the experts.
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I'm guessing you missed the "of that strength" part.
Magnets (Score:3)
I first heard about this treatment on the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast, which is hosted by a professor of neurology at Yale. He thought the hypothesis behind the device was scientifically valid. He doesn't believe in *any* kind of "alternative medicine" either. They specifically brought it up on the show because it is a rare case where magnets seem to work as a treatment in a very limited, *very* targeted fashion. The research on the treatment was done properly, and the findings are in line with
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In any case, it's a noninvasive procedure that is going to only be used on patients with terminal brain cancer, in conjunction with their regular treatment. It's definitely worth researching more.
Yep, they can try it. I have real doubts about the strength of the magnetic fields needed though.
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Welcome to the world of "not Facebook".
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the magnetic field pressure however light is a change agent and as such could change the calculus of cell division favoring one dynamic over another.
FTFY.
You are otherwise correct, no matter how much of a stretch.
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a) This treatment is very cheap (some magnets strapped to a bicycle helmet) and non-invasive.
b) Clinical trials can be done very quickly (a couple of weeks to see the results).
If it works then it will be used all over the world within a year or so and you'll be able to come back here and tell me I'm wrong.
Let's wait and see, shall we.
Re:anecdote != data (Score:5, Insightful)
Do it 1000 more times and it will be science. As it is, it is a feel-good story for 11 o'clock news.
The first time in those 1000 times is also science. Let's not confuse being pedantic with being quirky or scientific.
Re:anecdote != data (Score:4, Interesting)
Once is anecdote.
It's the first step toward science, but a sample of one is meaningless. Nobody should get excited about this, and it should not be in the news (not even a gosh-wow site like engadget), because it's not.
Re:anecdote != data (Score:5, Insightful)
Sample size isn't what makes it science. Falsifiability is what makes it science. The researchers had a hypothesis (strong enough magnetic fields will disrupt cell division in cancerous brain tumors). They came up with an experiment that would falsify their prediction (use a strong magnetic field - is tumor growth disrupted?). So, their hypothesis, after an initial very credible attempt to falsify, has survived. They may be on to something.
Every new idea starts somewhere. Sometimes it's possible to have a sample size of 1, or a sample size of 5, or a sample size of 100 trillion. In any of these situations, experimentalists can make meaningful contributions to science. General relativity had no experimental validation for years - it wasn't until 1919, with a single astronomical measurement that was consistent with the gravitational lensing Einstein predicted, that scientists had any confirmation of the theory. The important thing is that it did make a specific prediction, though, and it turns out that experimental results agreed with that prediction.
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Sample size isn't what makes it science. Falsifiability is what makes it science.
That sounds good, but no, that's only one tiny part of science. Really, reproducability is the hallmark of science.
This was an uncontrolled experiment, and with a single data point. This is the start of science-- you have to start somewhere-- but in and of itself, it tells you almost nothing.
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Repeatable and reproducible with enough statistics to prove it... that's science.
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Perhaps it should not be in the news but it's not meaningless. I don't know the stats for this cancer but if, say, the chances of the tumour spontaneously contracting like this are 1:10,000 then the results of this single data point are certainly of interest. If the odds are, say, 1:20, then much less so.
Single patient case studies like this are relatively common in medicine. A lot of experimental medical procedure are very expensive, high cost, high risk, etc, so it's not unusual for papers to be writt
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reproducability is the hallmark of science.
By your rationale, Einstein's GR wasn't science until gravitational lensing had been observed multiple times. LIGO wasn't science from 2002 to 2010 as it detected no gravitational waves (sample size = 0) with limited equipment, and still wasn't science when it detected a single wave in 2016 (sample size =1) with upgraded equipment.
On the other hand, there's a massive number of pseudoscience nutjobs on youtube who can reproduce their flawed perpetual motion machine or reactionless drive experiments all day l
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Sample size isn't what makes it science. Falsifiability is what makes it science.
That sounds good, but no, that's only one tiny part of science. Really, reproducability is the hallmark of science.
This was an uncontrolled experiment, and with a single data point. This is the start of science-- you have to start somewhere-- but in and of itself, it tells you almost nothing.
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Repeatable and reproducible with enough statistics to prove it... that's science.
The individual test is reproducible, by your definition, it is science. As you said, sample size doesn't matter, even if the size of the existing sample is 1 (the very first reproducible experiment.)
You keep digging that hole of you proving that the very first test in this experiment is/was science by declaring that it needed to be reproducible (it is) and that the sample size doesn't matter (meaning the experiment sample size of 1 is irrelevant.)
But you won't acknowledge that. Either you will drop sile
Sample size matters [Re:anecdote != data] (Score:2)
As you said, sample size doesn't matter, even if the size of the existing sample is 1 (the very first reproducible experiment.)
At no point did I ever say "sample size doesn't matter". That was a quote from the comment I was responding to.
A sample size of 1 is not science. It is a start, but only a start.
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Sample size isn't what makes it science. Falsifiability is what makes it science. The researchers had a hypothesis (strong enough magnetic fields will disrupt cell division in cancerous brain tumors). They came up with an experiment that would falsify their prediction (use a strong magnetic field - is tumor growth disrupted?). So, their hypothesis, after an initial very credible attempt to falsify, has survived. They may be on to something.
Exactly. It's these slashdot edge lords who confuse their own shallow skepticism with intelligence (or personality.)
Their entire shit-post personality compels them to be "that guy", the contrarian who opposes not because he's onto something but because he/she has a need to be a contrarian, making up shit along the way.
Normal people: "The sum of two odd numbers is an even number, let's start with 1+1. "
Skeptic edge lord: "Hey, that 1+1 thing, that's just an anecdote, bro, do you even math, bro? Don't yo
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Sample size isn't what makes it science. Falsifiability is what makes it science.
100% correct.
Fortunately for us this is a very cheap and non-invasive treatment and there are plenty of subjects to try it on. Even better: The results show up almost immediately (this guy was only doing it for a month) so the next 999 tests can be done very quickly.
Let's see what happens.
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You know what's really crazy? We give philosophy students and social science students a significantly broader and deeper grounding in research methodology and stats than we do physicists! (They actually need it, due to the nature of their respective disciplines. People aren't as reliable as atoms.) If you want to meet students who actually understand logic, go to the philosophy department. If you need help designing a study, hit up the social science guys. It's bizarre, but true.
Naturally, we venerate one and disparage the others. We live in a stupid world.
(I studied physics as a grad student at Rice. Top that.)
Fellow physics grad here (not at Rice, state university). And yes, it's remarkable how many people can make it through a PHd program without ever getting a thorough education on what science actually is. Even some very prominent public scientists don't understand the first thing about why science actually works.
Philosophy of science should be mandatory for undergrads IMO, but I think history of science could play an important role as well. I thought I hated history until I had the good fortune to stumble ac
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It's the first step toward science, but a sample of one is meaningless.
Not when it's repeatable it's not. And the test was repeated, they confirmed that the tumor behaved as expected when test was abandoned and resumed shrinking when the test was resumed.
You contradict yourself. If something forms the first step then it by definition can't be meaningless.
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Once is anecdote.
It's the first step toward science, but a sample of one is meaningless. Nobody should get excited about this, and it should not be in the news (not even a gosh-wow site like engadget), because it's not.
It is an anecdote only when it is done in isolation without a means to be repeated. When it is done with the purpose to explore a hypothesis and to create a repeatable test framework to test it, it is science.
Do we need Barnie with a bunch of crayons to explain Science 101? Again, quirky pedantry is not a substitute for intellectualism.
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You very clearly don't understand basic science. You should probably stop posting now.
LOL
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even 1,000 times is bad science since all you have done is establish a correlation
I hope you're joking. There's a difference between proper experimentation and statistics.
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There's a difference between proper experimentation and statistics.
Indeed, just as there is a difference between science and medicine. The goal of science is understanding while the goal of medicine is to cure people. Science can be a useful tool for medicine since understanding can lead to new cures, just like statistics is a useful tool for proper experimentation. Having a correlation that wearing this helmet cures the disease is great medicine but bad science because all you have is a correlation without any clue as to why.
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The medicine came after the patent filing, which as plenty of science:
https://patentscope.wipo.int/s... [wipo.int]
See: ex-vivo experimentation, using dyes to verify the disruption and destruction of mitochondria.
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The first time in those 1000 times is also science.
No, the first time is not science in the same way that one tree is not a forest. Indeed, even 1,000 times is bad science since all you have done is establish a correlation and, as we hopefully all know correlation is not causation.
Jesus Christ. The first time was a well established experiment with data that came with it. It sets the stage for a reproducible test, which will determine if the results of the first experiment are repeatable or just a one-off.
It is science, it is part of the scientific process, and it sets the stage for other people to repeat the experiments to further study the results (if there is causation, or correlation, statistical significance or lack thereof, or even to discover if the first experiment was valid
Re:anecdote != data (Score:4, Insightful)
Do it 1000 more times and it will be science. As it is, it is a feel-good story for 11 o'clock news.
...and make 1000 other people wear a helmet without magnets. Then compare the results.
Medicine != Science (Score:2)
Do it 1000 more times and it will be science.
No, do it 1,000 times and we would now have a cure for a disease that nobody has a clue how it works. This is great medicine but appalling science because you have no understanding of what is going on. Even if a correlation is established, correlation is not causation: it may be nothing to do with the magnetic field perhaps it is just the placebo effect, or wearing a helmet or carrying weights on your head etc.
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According to the patent filing (if this is the same version of the device), it disrupts mitochondrial process and destroys them. They tracked this ex-vivo using dyes to confirm the results.
https://patentscope.wipo.int/s... [wipo.int]
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My link works. You either have a way out of date browser that doesn't support the .int TLD or you have something broken. Fix your stuff before blaming the link.
You ignored the peer-reviewed journal and wanted "science" on how it works. The patent describes the science they did - you can believe or not believe whether they did the science.
If it disrupts the mitochondrial process then why does it not affect healthy cells and destroy them too?
I expect that's why the rotation and orientation of the magnet is computer controlled - some precision targeting would be possible through modulating the speed and direc
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Fix your stuff before blaming the link.
My stuff works fine. The link works now but it was clearly a problem at their end since it was giving a "server error, file not found" type error.
You ignored the peer-reviewed journal
Ah, you mean the journal included on Beall's List of predatory publishers [scholarlyoa.com]? Check the entry out for Frontiers. The paper leaves huge questions hanging in the air such as the fact that that they claim their oscillating magnetic field was what worked. However, it generated a maximum of a 1mT field while they were subjecting the patient to a 7T magnetic field for th
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Field strength does not give the whole picture. Even the Earth's magnetic field, which is a further fraction of the size, has effects on cellular growth and replication. And that has been proven in numerous journals and probably the inspiration for this type of treatment.
Oscillation is entirely the point, not field strength. Oscillation is the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, for one - not amplitude. It may not work, but dismissing it on those grounds of silly.
A predatory journal
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Oscillation is the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, for one
Not really. All EM radiation is an EM wave and hence oscillates. What matters is the frequency of that radiation which determines whether the photons it consists of having enough energy to free electrons from their bound orbitals in an atom or molecule. The frequency to do this is well above the terahertz range and there is no way that a system of mechanically spinning magnets is going to reach anything even close to that sort of frequency.
It may not work, but dismissing it on those grounds of silly.
I'm not saying whether or not it works I am merely saying that pre
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Your link does not work and a patent filing is not peer-reviewed research: you can make literally any claim you like in one. If it disrupts the mitochondrial process then why does it not affect healthy cells and destroy them too?
Of course it affects healthy cells too. You don't seem to understand how cancer treatments work. Where did you go to medical school?
Questions (Score:2)
Of course it affects healthy cells too.
That's not at all what they say: "...we have produced strong selective anticancer effects in patient derived GBM and xenografted mouse models without causing adverse effects on cultured normal cells and normal mice...".
Where did you go to medical school?
I did not - I'm a scientist, not a medic which is why it's annoying to see this sort of thing passed off as science when it is not, or at the very least it is not good science. I mean they publish in what Beall's list refers to as a predatory journal and are claiming that their 1mT rotating
Healthy cells (Score:2)
> If it disrupts the mitochondrial process then why does it not affect healthy cells and destroy them too?
I think the idea is that healthy cells in the adult brain don‘t divide much. So it would affect all cells that divide, While your regular neurons usually don’t divide at any point in time, and thus would not be affected much, Glioblastoma is one of the fastest growing cancers known.
It‘s a very nice idea and it should be easy to prove because Glioblastoma has a very bad prognosis.
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I think the idea is that healthy cells in the adult brain don‘t divide much.
They don't, but they do divide. And in a clinically significant amount.
So it would affect all cells that divide, While your regular neurons usually don’t divide at any point in time, and thus would not be affected much, Glioblastoma is one of the fastest growing cancers known. It‘s a very nice idea and it should be easy to prove because Glioblastoma has a very bad prognosis.
This part I agree entirely with.
A small amount of potential (probably temporary) brain damage in exchange for improving your 95% chance of dying due to that glioblastoma?
Sign me up. It can't be any worse than chemotherapy, and unlike chemotherapy, this stuff (if it's real) would actually work past the blood-brain barrier.
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No, do it 1,000 times and we would now have a cure for a disease that nobody has a clue how it works. This is great medicine but appalling science because you have no understanding of what is going on.
You keep saying that, but ignore the fact that there is a detailed theory of what is going on. Moreover, that theory has been tested in the lab (in vitro).
The question is: Does it work with these helmets? Answer: Looks like it does, let's do some more tests to be sure.
You know what is "appalling science"? Ignoring the literature.
I read that backwards... (Score:2)
First world test...
How does it work ? (Score:5, Insightful)
The paper does not suggest any mechanism as to how a magnetic field will affect a tumour. As much as I would love this to be real ... let wait until many more tumours are cured.
Re:How does it work ? (Score:4, Insightful)
The paper does not suggest any mechanism as to how a magnetic field will affect a tumour.
That's because there isn't one.
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At one time we didn’t know the mechanism behind electricity. With your attitude we still wouldn’t. With more data their claims can be proven or disproven. Until then immediately dismissing research is a short sighted approach.
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If the mechanisms they're proposing are true true then anybody who works around power lines or near large electric motors would be dead within a couple of years.
Oblig. (Re:How does it work ?) (Score:3)
Magnets, how do they work?
Maybe temperature? (Score:2)
The paper does not suggest any mechanism as to how a magnetic field will affect a tumour. As much as I would love this to be real ... let wait until many more tumours are cured.
Tumors typically don't have good circulation/blood vessels, it's one of the ways that they escape the body's defense mechanisms. For this reason, they have difficulty dealing with increased temperature - there's no way to dump any excess heat.
Some experimental tumor treatments try to leverage this effect, by warming the area using various means such as EM fields - basically lightly microwaving the area, with the usual cautions (several emitters around the body targeting a limited area, limited power, and so
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I don't have any links to that, but I know of experiments of growing plants in electrostatic fields. What sometimes happen is that an ancient phenotype of the plant (think: millions of years ago) emerges, but the DNA code stays the same.
Apparently sustained fields have more effect on living tissue than previously believed. I'm imagining that specific chemical reactions are influenced, pathways are changed etc.. It doesn't matter much when the field is transient and sporadic, but if it's constant, always the
Re:How does it work ? (Score:5, Informative)
So promising (Score:2)
> Besides the initial voodoo factor, the mental image of walking around with electrodes taped to your head and a large battery backpack unfortunately turned a lot of people off the idea.
That‘s really unfortunate:
> The interim analysis included 210 patients randomized to TTFields plus
temozolomide and 105 randomized to temozolomide alone, and was conducted at a median follow-up of 38 months (range, 18-60 months). Median progression-free survival in the intent-to-treat population was 7.1 months (95
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Don’t forget the work of Royal Rife who invented an RF system that used a modulated MHz RF near field to find the resonance frequency of cancer cells and mechanically destroy them. His lab was and equipment were mysteriously burnt down.
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I does. They hypothesize that it interferes with electron transport in mitochondria.
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So a refrigerator magnet is your unit of reference as to whether it can affect biological tissue?
Call me when the sample space is 1 (Score:2)
I'm sure there have been animal tests that lead up to trying this but the term "appearing to correlate" with only one patient isn't exactly a confidence booster.
Going back to the 1960s there have been studies trying to understand what magnetic fields can do to help heal the body - this includes healing bones and regrowing lost limbs and organs.
I'm not calling this snake oil, but let's see some positive results in multiple patients before this gets hyped in the media.
Stupid Slashdot: Right Chevron removed. (Score:3)
I meant for the subject to be: "Call me when the sample space is greater than 1" but the Right Chevron (Greater than) character was deleted.
I'm sure there have been animal tests that lead up to trying this but the term "appearing to correlate" with only one patient isn't exactly a confidence booster.
Going back to the 1960s there have been studies trying to understand what magnetic fields can do to help heal the body - this includes healing bones and regrowing lost limbs and organs.
I'm not calling this snake oil, but let's see some positive results in multiple patients before this gets hyped in the media.
I told you ... (Score:5, Funny)
... that my tin foil hat protects me from aliens!
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Ehm, your tinfoil hat might make your tumor grow faster :)
Until.. (Score:2)
They can replicate this on a larger study group with controls, I would be hard pressed to walk around like Rick Moranisâ(TM) character in Ghost Busters.
For all we know, they received treatment outside the magnetic helmet or were the recipient of a miracle from their god. The fact they died a month in from an accident makes me think they tried walking around with this thing and were attracted to front grill of a moving truck. Sounds fishy.
If it proves outâ¦wonderful. For now, I call bullsh
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If you were BEHAVING like Rick Moranis of Ghost Busters did, you'd be willing try out any goofy new thing to cure whatever is messing with your brain just short of turning into a demonic dog.
Just think if smoking causing cancer was new today... we'd have it be political and people would be instead freaking over invisible gasses in their basements (radon #2 cause) and a clever PR campaign would get nutty movements associated with the actual facts and their junk science would be promoted by the Trump cult...
More Detail (Score:5, Informative)
The article is light on details, but the peer-reviewed article gives this information:
A new FDA-approved treatment involving electric fields alternating at 200 kHz called Optune therapy is now available for recurrent GBM as monotherapy and in combination with temozolomide for newly diagnosed GBM (3, 4). It is also being tested in clinical trials for other cancers. Its hypothesized mechanism of action involves disruption of tubulin dimers, mitotic spindles, and cell division by electric field-induced dipole alignment and dielectrophoresis (5). It has a modest effect on survival, increasing median overall survival by 0.6 month in recurrent GBM (3), and in newly diagnosed GBM by 31% (4). Even this modest effect is encouraging for patients.
It has been shown that electromagnetic fields (EMF) produce anticancer effects in vitro (6, 7). We have conducted preclinical experiments with a new noninvasive wearable device known as an Oncomagnetic device that generates oscillating magnetic fields (OMF) by rotating strong permanent magnets (8, 9). The OMF generating components (oncoscillators) of the device can be attached to a helmet and treatment with the device does not require shaving the head. Using the oncoscillators of the device and specially devised patterns of magnet rotations we have produced strong selective anticancer effects in patient derived GBM and xenografted mouse models without causing adverse effects on cultured normal cells and normal mice (10–12). The mechanism of action of OMF differs from Optune and involves disruption of the electron transport in the mitochondrial respiratory chain causing elevation of reactive oxygen species and caspase-dependent cancer cell death (10–12).
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Thanks for being the guy who didn't waste space here arguing about high school statistics!
The stated mechanism of action seems awfully specific for the stage they're at though.
I wanna know the unrelated injury (Score:2)
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He read some slashdot comments and face palmed too hard.
Quackery? Maybe. Maybe not. (Score:2)
As for mechanism, we use lots of drugs for which mechanism of efficacy is only somewhat understood. If we fully understood mechanisms, than checkpoint inhibitors would work perfectly well in all use cases, but they don't. Strength of the
Haha. (Score:2)
Suckers if you fall for this one off.
Operation successful! (Score:2)
Patient dead.
Glioblastoma (Score:2)
A friend of mine was diagnosed with an aggressive glioblastoma and they did chemo and this magnet thing. We kind of laughed about it, this mesh helmet he wore attached to a power supply for 8 hours a day. We even did some testing with an O-scope and antenna to try and figure out the frequencies they were feeding to the cap (we measured 200kHz). Glioblastomas are crazy - one killed my cousin in 6 months from first diagnosis. This guy is still alive 2 years later and in some kind of remission.
So what was (Score:2)
... his "unrelated injury" ?
his head exploded when he walked near a microwave.
Looked up glioblastoma (Score:2)
I found the story fascinating. It's amazing that they can treat cancer with magnets! It sound like quackery but the paper's been peer-reviewed & published in a high-impact journal.
And, well, I've just looked up glioblastoma. It's nasty. Really, really nasty. I feel so sorry for the poor guy that had it. I really, really hope this works out to be an effective treatment for the disease.
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And the Earth's magnetic radiation is 1/100th of that at the surface. And we also have studies saying that cell growth is affected by that too:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov]
And that's a static field, not oscillating. I wouldn't rule it out just by speculating or unfounded dismissal.
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Either way, that example in the article is a different device. The device in this study uses a rotating 1.48 tesla neodymium magnet.
Read the patent filing:
https://patentscope.wipo.int/s... [wipo.int]
They seem to be directly tracking the breakdown of mitochondria using dyes in ex-vivo testing.
Just because other people are waving magnets around and shouting "woo" doesn't mean that non-ionizing, high intensity EM radiation has no place in cancer treatment.
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skepticism is great - but you have to know your limits. Dunning-Kruger fueled denialism is something else entirely.
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Oh, and we already know that the very tiny (compared to refrigerator magnets) magnetic field produced by the earth also affects cell growth and reproduction.
They were literally replying to a link that said this exact thing when giving the example.
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They haven't spoken English in America for years.