Researchers use helmet to shrink brain tumor

The helmet that the patient wore on his head while administering therapy in his own home generates a noninvasive oscillating magnetic field.

Hyderabad: A helmet that can shrink a deadly tumor! Seems unreal? Not anymore. Researchers at the US-based Houston Methodist Neurological Institute’s neurosurgery department have shrunk a deadly Glioblastoma tumor by more than a third using a helmet.

The helmet that the patient wore on his head while administering therapy in his own home generates a noninvasive oscillating magnetic field. The 53-year-old patient died from an unrelated injury about a month into the treatment, but during that short time, 31 per cent of the tumor mass disappeared. The autopsy of his brain confirmed the rapid response to the treatment, the researchers informed in their case study.

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“Thanks to the courage of this patient and his family, we were able to test and verify the potential effectiveness of the first noninvasive therapy for Glioblastoma in the world,” said David S. Baskin, M.D., FACS, FAANS, corresponding author and director of the Kenneth R. Peak Center for Brain and Pituitary Tumor Treatment in the Department of Neurosurgery at Houston Methodist.

In a case study published in Frontiers in Oncology Baskin and his colleagues detailed the journey of their pioneering patient who suffered from end-stage recurrent Glioblastoma, despite a radical surgical excision, chemo radiotherapy and experimental gene therapy.

Glioblastoma is the deadliest of brain cancers in adults, nearly always fatal, with a life expectancy of a few months to two years. The treatment consisted of intermittent application of an oscillating magnetic field generated by rotating permanent magnets in a specific frequency profile and timing pattern. First administered for two hours under supervision in the Peak Clinic, ensuing treatments were given at home with help from the patient’s wife, with increasing treatment times up to a maximum of only six hours per day.

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