CANCER BREAKTHROUGH?: Arlen Specter seeks to put inventor's idea on fast track for animal testing

Arlen Specter seeks to put inventor's idea on fast track for animal testing. Sen. Arlen Specter is working to put a Washington County native's experimental cancer treatment on the funding fast track so animal testing can begin at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Specter, R-Pa., described the medical invention of John Kanzius, 60 as "very promising." "We're going to work on it promptly," Specter said. "The wheels of bureaucracy work faster when dealing with a killer disease." Kanzius,... design[ed] what he hopes is a way to use radio waves to kill cancerous tumors and cells.

The idea is to create a fatal fever in cancer cells without affecting healthy cells. If his method proves out, Kanzius' patent will provide a New Age cancer treatment that forgoes the debilitating side effects of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. It could prove to be effective for many forms of cancer, including leukemia and brain tumors. Specter has asked the National Institutes of Health and NIH's Cancer Institute to find money so animal testing can begin under the direction of Dr. David A. Geller, co-director of UPMC's Liver Cancer Center. Specter also has included language in his annual report as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education that exhorts the subcommittee to "please, move on this," said his spokesman, Charles Robbins. Geller, who introduced the technology known as radio wave ablation to UPMC, said Kanzius' method could take technology to a new level.

Kanzius' procedure is noninvasive and provides a way to target all cancer cells. As such, Geller has described Kanzius' invention as a potential breakthrough. "This will benefit humanity." While Specter is seeking federal funds, state Rep. John Evans, R-Erie County, said he would seek state funds for testing.

ON A RELATED NOTE......

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=9759

Nanoshells cancer treatment proves effective in first animal test

22 Jun 2004

A revolutionary new form of cancer therapy in development at Rice University and its licensee, Nanospectra Biosciences Inc., has proven effective at eradicating tumors in laboratory animals during the first phase of animal testing.

The noninvasive cancer treatment uses a combination of harmless, near-infrared light and benign, gold nanoshells to destroy tumors with heat. The treatment does not affect healthy tissue.

"We are extremely encouraged by the results of these first animal tests," said Jennifer West, professor of bioengineering and chemical engineering. "These results confirm that nanoshells are effective agents for the photothermal treatment of in vivo tumors."

Results of the study are published in the June 25 issue of the journal Cancer Letters.

Invented in the 1990s by Naomi Halas at Rice, nanoshells are about 20 times smaller than a red blood cell. The multilayered nanoshells consist of a silica core covered by a thin gold shell. The size, shape and composition of nanoshells give them unique optical properties. By varying the size of the core and the thickness of the gold shell, researchers can tailor a nanoshell to respond to a specific wavelength of light.

The photothermal cancer treatment uses nanoshells that are tuned to respond to near-infrared light. Located just outside the visible spectrum, near-infrared light passes harmlessly through soft tissue. In the treatment, nanoshells convert this light into heat that destroys nearby tumor cells. The heating is very localized and does not affect healthy tissue adjacent to the tumor.

The animal trial involved 25 mice with tumors ranging in size from 3-5.5 millimeters. The mice were divided into three groups. The first group was given no treatment. The second received saline injections, followed by three minutes exposure to near-infrared laser light. The final group received nanoshell injections and laser treatments.

The blood vessels inside tumors develop poorly, allowing small particles like nanoshells to leak out and accumulate inside tumors. In the test, researchers injected nanoshells into the mice, waited six hours to give the nanoshells time to accumulate in the tumors and then applied a 5 millimeter wide laser on the skin above each tumor.

Surface temperature measurements taken on the skin above the tumors during the laser treatments showed a marked increase that averaged about 46 degrees Fahrenheit for the nanoshells group. There was no measurable temperature increase at the site of laser treatments in the saline group. Likewise, sections of laser-treated skin located apart from the tumor sites in the nanoshells group also showed no increase in temperature, indicating that the nanoshells had accumulated as expected within the tumors.

All signs of tumors disappeared in the nanoshells group within 10 days. These mice remained cancer-free after treatment.

Tumors in the other two test groups continued to grow rapidly. All mice in these groups were euthanized when the tumors reached 10 millimeters in size. The mean survival time of the mice receiving no treatment was 10.1 days; the mean survival time for the group receiving saline injections and laser treatments was 12.5 days.

"The results of these first animal studies are very promising, and while we don't yet have a target date for our first human trial, our entire team is working hard to make this treatment available to cancer patients as soon as possible," said Halas, the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and professor of chemistry. "We have licensed the technology to the Houston-based firm Nanospectra Biosciences Inc., which will obtain the necessary approvals and funding for human trials."

Mayo uses heat to kill tumors; somewhat differently from this procedure. I saw a special on Discovery Health, where a young woman (she has a son about six) has a type of cancer that causes tumors to pop up everywhere. She goes there every 4 months, and they just deal with the new tumors. I believe the one that was heated was in her liver, and it was fairly large. They used cryotherapy for some of the others.

Now, liver tumors are generally considered fatal. But, they treated hers with heat; did a new scan and said..."well it's gone." At the end of the show they said that she should be fine as long as they treat the new tumors...should be around for her son's graduation and wedding! I'd never heard of such a thing.

Many members of my extended family have been treated at Mayo with great success. My uncle's Mom was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer 4 or 5 years ago, and was given a VERY poor prognosis by the local docs. She's around 90, and it is catching up with her now; but they kept it at bay for years. I've never heard of anyone else I've known who had cancer having this type of heat treatment instead of chemo...why not?

Just found another article on this possible breakthrough...

http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=CANCERTECH-08-01-04&cat=AH

Here are some excerpts...

- During sleepless nights caused by the steroids he was taking during cancer chemotherapy, John Kanzius decided to use his drug-induced insomnia wisely.

He spent the wee hours at his computer, studying the structure of normal cells and how they differed from cancer cells. He became fluent in cancer biology, including his own rare B-cell form of leukemia, and eventually amassed 100 pounds of medical research.

Then he went one step further. Drawing on his background in electronics and his knack for solving problems, Kanzius, 60, developed a possible method for treating cancer with radio waves.

A former partner in an Erie, Pa., broadcasting company, Kanzius said he was particularly hopeful his 15-month scientific odyssey had produced a cancer therapy that will have a minimum of harmful side effects.

"I didn't wake up one day to see if I could cure cancer," he said. "I just woke up one day hoping to reduce the suffering."

But the invention has attracted interest from the small group of doctors who are aware of it. Kanzius also says some biotech firms have expressed tentative interest in financing its development.

He applied in May for a patent on his invention, which combines a device for focusing radio waves on cancer cells with an as-yet undisclosed technique for sensitizing cancer cells to the effects of radio frequency radiation. He said his attorneys had cautioned him against revealing further details of his invention until the patent is approved.

But some doctors who have reviewed it under confidentiality agreements are enthusiastic.

One of them, Dr. Robert J. McDonald, director of nuclear medicine at the Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center in Fort Myers, Fla., said the invention was "pretty incredible."

Dr. Jan Rothman, an oncologist and hematologist at the Erie Regional Cancer Center, agreed his former patient's creation "has great potential."

Dr. David A. Geller, co-director of the Liver Cancer Center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said the invention has breakthrough potential.

The real story, McDonald insists, is how Kanzius, without a degree in electrical engineering and without a medical background, came up with a treatment of such promise.

"John is onto something very, very big." It's inconceivable, he said, for "someone with his background to come up with this. This is a movie."

Kanzius has always been interested in medicine. His mother wanted him to become a doctor, but during the new age of transistors of the 1960s his father persuaded him to pursue a grander future in solid-state electronics. He earned a technical degree from the Allegheny Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh and landed a job with RCA. Once his electronic expertise was established, he joined Jet Broadcasting Co. Inc., and became president of the firm in 1983.

But he decided to end his broadcast career after he was diagnosed with leukemia in April 2002. He sold his stations, the last one in November, and retired to focus on his health.

At wit's end, he sent an e-mail to Dr. Michael Keating, a leukemia expert at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

"I think I can cure you," Keating told him. He prescribed an aggressive chemotherapy regimen that Kanzius underwent in Erie and Florida. By then Kanzius had witnessed a parade of sad, sickened, fatigued patients going through the brutal treatment routine. It left him with a thought: "There must be some way to improve this."

Kanzius won't detail his technology while his patent is pending. But he would say, "All of these technological components already exist. I took a bunch of technology, the best of all of them, and made a marriage of them."

Rothman, the Erie oncologist, said Kanzius' method offered many advantages. It's simple and inexpensive without side effects or quality-of-life reductions for patients. There would be no limit on how often a person could receive the treatment.

Although Kanzius' cancer has been in remission since the Keating treatment, he said, the day could come when he needs to be treated with his own creation.

_____________________________

Note also that the "Nanoshell" technology is showing incredible promise. The mice that had their cancers cured, are still cancer free over a year since.

I heard Dr. Jennifer West in a radio interview, in which she was asked if this could be the "cure for Cancer", and she indicated that this new nanotech breakthrough had the very good possibility of being just that. They are going to start human trials soon (within 18 months), on a deadly form of lung cancer.

To hear her radio interview you have to go here....

http://www.planetearthradio.com/health.htm

Scroll down to....

Dramatic breakthrough in the search for a Cancer cure - Jennifer West

12 Min.

["Scientists are reporting a significant breakthrough in their war on cancer. They’ve discovered a way of destroying tumors with amazing accuracy and no damage to surrounding tissues. Using nanotechnology, tiny ‘nanoshells’ are injected into the tumor to destroy it. Tests in mice have been successful and this could result in treatments for humans which will be used on cancers which are currently inoperable. Jennifer West, associate Professor of Bioengineering at Rice University is leading the research and reveals more in this fascinating interview."]

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