‘Zapper’ offers high hope in cancer treatment

A precisely targeted electric ‘zap’ has been used to kill tumours in a new cancer treatment being pioneered at Melbourne’s Alfred hospital.

This month Thomas Monaghan, 81, of Bacchus Marsh, became the first person in the world to have a kidney tumour treated by the technique, dubbed the ‘NanoKnife’.

Instead of risky surgery, imprecise radiotherapy or debilitating chemotherapy, doctors insert two thin needles into the tumour and arc 90 pulses of high-voltage electric current across it over 45 seconds.

The pulses kill the tumour cells and then the body’s natural processes replace the dead cells with healthy tissue. In animal tests, tumours disappeared within a fortnight, with little or no damage to the surrounding tissue.
 
While it is too early to be sure Mr Monaghan’s mandarin-sized tumour was destroyed, his doctors are “extremely excited” about the potential of the NanoKnife as a cure for cancer.

“It’s a breakthrough because of the lack of surrounding damage,” said The Alfred’s professor of radiology, Ken Thomson.

“It doesn’t damage the surrounding structure like the nerves, the blood vessels and the sinews — it just kills the (tumour) cells. The only complication is that the patient needs to be sedated for the treatment, because otherwise the electric shock would “jump them off the table”, Professor Thomson said.
 
The machine is still highly experimental. It is only used in one other place, by its co-inventor in a private Florida clinic, to treat prostate cancer. Professor Thomson arranged for The Alfred to get the $A395,000 machine free. In exchange, the hospital will publicise and test the machine on humans, first for safety, then for efficacy in treating a variety of cancers.
 
The team has so far treated two liver cancers and Mr Monaghan’s kidney cancer with the technique. All three struck no safety issues, and a follow-up on one liver cancer patient after two weeks showed the tumour “had just about disappeared”, Professor Thomson said. This week the first lung cancer patient will get the treatment, and eventually the team hopes to get 100 patients in the trial.