January 21, 2016 – Electrical Fields and Brain Tumors

Posted on Posted in All Podcasts, Brain Matters, Cancer, Health Newsfeed, Neurology And Neurosurgery

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Anchor lead:  Can a helmet using electrical fields improve survival from some brain tumors? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Elizabeth Tracey: A helmet employing alternating electrical field pulses has been shown to improve survival from glioblastoma, one type of deadly brain tumor. A study published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association found. John Weingart, a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins, explains the strategy.

John Weingart: It involves what's called tumor treating fields or low wave frequency electric fields that are applied to the scalp. The mechanism is to disrupt cellular biology such that it keeps cells from being able to divide. So it's a low-intensity microwave in a way that disrupts cellular division, thus would affect any process that requires cellular division to progress, which is what tumors do.

Elizabeth Tracey: Weingart says the helmet is custom-made and used alongside surgery and possibly also chemotherapy. People wear the helmet for the majority of the day and must shave their heads to do so. At Johns Hopkins, I'm Elizabeth Tracey.