education/Research

New method gives cancer patients hope of life – electricity to destroy bad tumours

Wednesday, 08 February 2012
There is a move being taken in a medical community in Sweden in which a method is being pioneered at studies at the University Hospital in Uppsala in which electricity could be used to scatter dangerous caner tumours.

Uppsala is there one of the first hospitals in the world trying to burn away cancer cells with electrical current. This provides patients with a bleak history of diagnoses new hope for life.

Tumours in the liver, lung or pancreas are often difficult to operate. Survival rates among those affected is very low. But as the first hospital in northern Europe to academically carry out testing of the method at the moment the possibility of treating cancer with electrical current when other therapies have failed seem likely in the nearest future.

“The big advantage is that we can treat tumours that are growing and around blood vessels and as such other structures must not be damaged. So far it has been difficult to access them through radiation or surgery,” says consultant, Anders Nilsson at University Hospital to Swedish television.

The study is still in its infancy. Since last summer, eight patients with cancer of the liver and pancreas have had treatment at the University Hospital.

“When we treated the first patient at Uppsala Hospital of pancreatic cancer, it was one of the first treatments in the world,” says Anders Nilsson.

The treatment is characterised by that thin needles are inserted through the skin to reach around the tumour area. Then, electricity current is conducted between the needles that destroy the cancer cells.

To date, the subjects have responded positively to the treatment, and representatives of patient organizations welcomed the study.
“Patients are grateful that there is something that could be done about diseases. These patients have had no option at all,” says Anders Nilsson.
By Scancomark.se Team

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