Radioablation Breast Cancer

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Nothing I ever write here should be taken as any kind of medical

advice.

Always consult your health professional for medical advice. Anything I post on

this

list is only information to discuss with your doctor.

There are several ways to kill cancer using heat.

1. freeze the cancer to kill it.

2. heat the cancer to kill it. This can be with regular heat or radio wave

heat or

microwave heat.

Simple electricity also kill tumors, as does salt water or ethanol.

Immune therapy is a good adjunct to all other therapies, especially if one

does

not want the tumor to return later.

You may have read this before but here it is any way.

moonbeam

New Heat Method Destroys Breast Tumors

Article date: 2001/11/29

Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) — a relatively new method of destroying tumors by

heating them with energy waves similar to microwaves — is showing promise, say

researchers in a report in Cancer (Vol. 92, No. 8: 2036-2044).

The authors write, " Our initial evaluation of RFA in the treatment of patients

with

early-stage breast carcinoma suggests that it should be studied further in

patients

with Stage I disease. "

A. Curley, MD, of M.D. Cancer Center in Houston and his

colleagues

say it's not yet clear whether it's a good treatment for patients with Stage II

or

larger tumors.

The researchers note that removing only the tumor (lumpectomy) and then

radiating

the breast has in recent years been shown to be as effective a treatment for

early-

stage breast cancer as mastectomy (surgical breast removal).

That awareness has increased interest in finding even less-invasive ways of

treating

early stage breast cancers. Success in treating liver tumors with RFA made

researchers want to learn whether it could produce good results in breast cancer

patients.

Technique's Heat Destroys Tumors Cells

In the RFA method, doctors use ultrasound images on a monitor screen to guide a

very

thin metal needle through the patient's skin into the tumor. The needle opens to

extend extremely thin antennae-like probes in all directions from its tip.

Then radiofrequency energy passes through the probes into the tumor tissue,

heating

it hot enough to kill the tumor cells and a small rim of normal tissue — the

safety

" margin " — around them.

The researchers, at the G. Pascale National Tumor Institute in Naples, Italy,

used

the experimental treatment with 20 patients with Stage I and six women with

Stage II

breast tumors 3 cm or smaller.

Because the study was done to see whether the treatment is adequate to destroy

the

tumor and any adjacent cancerous tissue, after each woman was treated her tumor

was

surgically removed and tested to see if any cancer cells remained alive in or

around

it.

In 25 of the 26 patients, no cancerous cells were found alive in or around the

removed tumor.

One patient's removed tumor showed some cancer cells still alive near where the

needle had been inserted.

Expert Says Method Doesn't Yet Show an Advantage

The quest for improved treatments is and should be an always-ongoing one, notes

Jeanne Petrek, MD, attending surgeon at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

in

New York City.

But Petrek says that currently, RFA shows no advantage over surgical removal of

a

tumor, and involves some problems that surgery doesn't.

Petrek, a member of the American Cancer Society's breast cancer council, tells

ACS

News Today a major concern is how to know all the cancerous cells in and around

the

tumor have been killed, since outside clinical trials, the destroyed mass would

be

left inside the body.

She notes also that the RFA procedure requires general anesthesia because of the

intense heat and burning, but a lumpectomy usually is done with a non-general

anesthesia.

Lastly, she adds, there is a concern about whether the scar tissue formed by the

burned tissue would prevent as good a cosmetic result as can be obtained now

with

lumpectomy and breast reconstruction.

" This is an interesting new technique that might have a niche somewhere, but its

current limitations make it hard to see any advantage in breast cancer treatment

over other methods already in use now, " Petrek concludes.