MIT Radar Technology Fights Breast Cancer

Add another notch to the belt representing new ways to treat breast cancer. In a recent press release, researchers announced that chemotherapy could be made more effective when it is used along with heat therapy treatment.

Researchers at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, made this announcement based upon clinical trials and research studies that they have conducted. The current study is based upon the results of their fourth clinical trial utilizing this new technique.

They have been successful in reducing the size of large tumors by half, or 50 percent, when using this technique. The technique combines standard chemotherapy treatment along with using a focused microwave heat treatment, targeting the tumor itself.

Calling the microwave heat treatments "thermotherapy," researchers administered this treatment to fifteen different breast cancer patients on two different occasions. During this time frame, the patients also received four treatments of standard chemotherapy.

As treatments for breast cancer progress, many newer treatments are trying to avoid the necessity of mastectomies, preferring to remove only the tumor itself in a procedure known as a lumpectomy. Nearly all of the patients (14 out of the 15 patients who participated) in this clinical trial were able to successfully have a lumpectomy instead of having a mastectomy.

"It appears that heating the tumors drastically increased the effectiveness of the chemotherapy. The tumors shrank faster and died faster using the additional microwave hyperthermia on top of the chemotherapy," said Dr. William C. Dooley, director of surgical oncology at the University of Oklahoma. Dooley was also one of the principal investigators in this study.

Since this is the fourth clinical trial that has taken place since the late 1990s that uses this procedure, the research team is seeking to expand its studies. They have applied for permission to conduct a large-scale clinical trial from both Canadian and American officials. The applications have been made with the U.S. FDA and Health Canada, which operates like the U.S. FDA to protect its citizens.

Once they receive approval, researchers hope to conduct additional studies on 228 patients who have been diagnosed with large tumors that are breast cancer. The participants will either receive chemotherapy (which is currently the standard treatment for breast cancer), or the combination of chemotherapy and thermotherapy treatment.

This highlights the importance of all research activities since researchers never know where their research may eventually lead. In this case, they state that they based their concept of using microwave heat treatment on older technology that was originally developed in the 1980s at MIT. The original application for heat treatment was to detect missiles.

Currently, it's estimated that breast cancer claims the lives of 40,000 women and 450 men every year.

This study has been published in the journal, Cancer Therapy.

Source:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/miot-mrt112707.php