How amazing is the 5-year survival rate of brain tumors that is 6 times that of tumor electric field therapy?

Cancer is a malignant tumor.

According to the common belief, getting a brain tumor is equivalent to sentenced to death.

The principle of TTF treatment of cancer is that alternating electric fields of specific frequencies interfere with the movement of charged particles and polarized molecules in the cell during mitosis, causing some internal structures of tumor cells to fail to form normally, and even causing cell membrane rupture to induce tumor cells in mitosis.

In principle, TTF can act on all solid tumors without drug resistance and has broad market prospects

So far, in all clinical studies and clinical applications, tumor electric field therapy has not shown systemic toxicity, and mild to moderate skin irritation is the most common side effect

Picture For a period of time, most brain tumor researchers were attracted by drug treatments, but few people paid attention to TTF, so that in 2011 the U.

Unlike previous short-lived programs, TTF has made a huge wave in the treatment of glioblastoma in just a few years: In the phase III clinical trial of newly diagnosed glioblastoma, it has prolonged the survival time of patients compared with standard treatment.

According to the latest published clinical data, during the 5-year follow-up, regardless of health status, age, gender, and tumor size, the electric field therapy plus chemotherapy group lived longer

More importantly, the effect of tumor electric field treatment is closely related to compliance.

In addition, judging from many use cases, security is also reliable

Novocure is the only medical company in the world with TTF listed products, but the cost is very expensive, which limits the use of many patients

The overall concept of TTF is to generate a certain voltage on the pole piece through an external power supply, and generate a certain intensity and frequency electric field in the intracranial tumor area to inhibit tumor growth

Perhaps you think that the above treatment requirements are the minutiae, which sounds much simpler than preparations for surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, but the actual situation is more complicated.

With the advent of TTF research results, more and more researchers have paid attention and devoted themselves to it, and more people have begun to try to reveal the anti-tumor mechanism of TTF

The most surprising thing is that not only for glioma, but also for a wide range of solid tumors, such as lung cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, etc.

Although these studies are still in the early stages and cannot describe the complete anti-tumor process of TTF, there is no doubt that these have gone beyond our understanding of this magical black box, guiding combined treatment plans, and expanding clinical applications.

Looking forward to the subsequent optimization direction of TTF, the first problem that needs to be solved is naturally heat production, which is currently the main source of side reactions of TTF.
Although there are studies on simulated heat production models, there is no better solution.
Perhaps in the future, it can be based on materials.
Reduce the heat generation of the pole piece
.
Another aspect that needs to be optimized is portability.
Although it has been updated to the second generation, portability in market research is still one of the main problems for patients
.
Combining the two aspects of heat generation and portability, we can consider designing implantable electric field devices, similar to brain pacemakers or cardiac pacemakers, which may further improve patient compliance
.
Secondly, the current lack of clinical evaluation standards for TTF, to a certain extent, is also because of fewer clinical applications and higher prices
.
If TTF wants to expand its clinical application, these are unavoidable barriers
.

Where is the future of brain tumor patients? Is TTF a short-lived or a long-term solution? We will wait and see
.

Reference source:

[1] STUPP, ROGER, TAILLIBERT, SOPHIE, KANNER, ANDREW, et al.
Effect of Tumor-Treating Fields Plus MainteDOI:10.
1001/jama.
2017.
18718.

[2] https://