Procedure Offers Hope for Those With Hard-to-Treat Tumors
Procedure Offers Hope for Those With Hard-to-Treat Tumors
March 27, 2000 (San Diego) -- Doctors are using heat to "cook" and kill malignancies, with encouraging results in tumors in a variety of organs, according to cancer researcher Bradford J. Wood, MD. The technique, known as radiofrequency ablation (RFA), delivers just enough heat to kill tumor cells without injuring the surrounding tissue and is particularly promising for patients whose tumors are too large or inaccessible for surgery.
RFA is "fast, easy, predictable, safe, and relatively cheap," Wood tells WebMD. It has shown good results in patients with tumors of the breast, liver, prostate, kidney, brain, and pancreas. Wood is a clinical investigator at the National Institutes of Health Cancer Center.
To perform RFA, a doctor uses a needle specially designed to deliver an electric current. The physician inserts the needle through the skin into the tumor, then turns on a generator that sends radiofrequency energy to the needle tip. This provides heat that kills tumor cells.
"Tissue dies at a certain temperature," says Wood, who spoke here at the annual conference of the Society of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiologists. Therefore, he says, doctors can predict and control the diameter of the area of tissue that will be destroyed. In approximately 10 to 12 minutes, he says, the technique can remove "a plum-sized sphere" of cancerous tissue.
A session may last from one to several hours and rarely requires hospitalization. "One of my patients went kayaking the day after being treated for a hereditary kidney tumor," Wood says.
Wood says that using RFA to destroy the hereditary type of kidney tumors is "particularly exciting because these patients are young and often end up on dialysis, and the tumors recur. The current standard of practice is to remove the entire kidney, but RFA is as effective, with less damage to the normal tissue."
Wood and his colleagues at the NIH have used RFA to treat 21 patients with kidney tumors, 10 of which were the hereditary type. Fourteen of those patients showed no X-ray evidence of residual tumor immediately after the treatment. So far, most patients have only been followed for five months, but one patient is free of cancer 18 months after treatment.
Procedure Offers Hope for Those With Hard-to-Treat Tumors
March 27, 2000 (San Diego) -- Doctors are using heat to "cook" and kill malignancies, with encouraging results in tumors in a variety of organs, according to cancer researcher Bradford J. Wood, MD. The technique, known as radiofrequency ablation (RFA), delivers just enough heat to kill tumor cells without injuring the surrounding tissue and is particularly promising for patients whose tumors are too large or inaccessible for surgery.
RFA is "fast, easy, predictable, safe, and relatively cheap," Wood tells WebMD. It has shown good results in patients with tumors of the breast, liver, prostate, kidney, brain, and pancreas. Wood is a clinical investigator at the National Institutes of Health Cancer Center.
To perform RFA, a doctor uses a needle specially designed to deliver an electric current. The physician inserts the needle through the skin into the tumor, then turns on a generator that sends radiofrequency energy to the needle tip. This provides heat that kills tumor cells.
"Tissue dies at a certain temperature," says Wood, who spoke here at the annual conference of the Society of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiologists. Therefore, he says, doctors can predict and control the diameter of the area of tissue that will be destroyed. In approximately 10 to 12 minutes, he says, the technique can remove "a plum-sized sphere" of cancerous tissue.
A session may last from one to several hours and rarely requires hospitalization. "One of my patients went kayaking the day after being treated for a hereditary kidney tumor," Wood says.
Wood says that using RFA to destroy the hereditary type of kidney tumors is "particularly exciting because these patients are young and often end up on dialysis, and the tumors recur. The current standard of practice is to remove the entire kidney, but RFA is as effective, with less damage to the normal tissue."
Wood and his colleagues at the NIH have used RFA to treat 21 patients with kidney tumors, 10 of which were the hereditary type. Fourteen of those patients showed no X-ray evidence of residual tumor immediately after the treatment. So far, most patients have only been followed for five months, but one patient is free of cancer 18 months after treatment.
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