New Technology Shrinks Liver Tumors

In a phase II study conducted by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, 41 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a liver cancer that often does not respond well to chemotherapy, were treated with very low levels of an electromagnetic field emitting from a spoon-like device placed in the patients’ mouths.After six months, the tumors in 14 patients had stabilized after each received three one-hour treatments each day; the therapy created no significant side effects.The small battery-driven “radio frequency electromagnetic field generator” has an attached spoon-shaped mouthpiece. The device is programmed and the patient pushes a button to start treatment. It emits low levels of amplitude-modulated radio frequency, resulting in the delivery of doses 100 to 1,000 times less than those generated from a cell phone.Learn more from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.