Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Prostate cancer could be treated by destroying tumors with electric currents

telegraph.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 115 posts

Re: Prostate cancer could be treated by destroying tumors with electric currents

#11

Post by givemeethekeys »

Antipodes456 wrote: post #6

Sample size n=1, but my dad was on the research or clinical trial of this exact treatment in Sydney, it worked for his prostate cancer, he's still clear from PSA tests (and possibly had biopsy also. No side effects. Previously he'd had the radioactive beads treatment which failed, the only other option was removal. Both these options have potentially unpleasant side effects. Happy to ask him questions if anyone wants…

How does it go? Was he put to sleep? What was the prep like leading up to it? What was the recovery like? Did he have to take any drugs?

Re: Prostate cancer could be treated by destroying tumors with electric currents

#12

Post by barrenko »

foepys wrote: post #8
thr717272 wrote: post #7

First time it really hits home how large the risk is. 1/6 is a rather large risk.

It's more likely that you die with prostate cancer than because of prostate cancer. Yes, cancer is never good but for most men prostate cancer develops late and is usually growing very slowly and doesn't spread.

Yess, it's something along the lines that as a man - if you live long enough you'll get prostate cancer.

Re: Prostate cancer could be treated by destroying tumors with electric currents

#13

Post by z3c0 »

dcminter wrote: post #10
ars wrote: post #4

Is there anything about this that is specific to the prostate? Wouldn't this exact same treatment work on other accessible tumors, for example breast or skin?

My father had Nanoknife for pancreatic cancer; it wasn't a cure, but it reduced the tumour enough to buy him another couple of years.

Incredible. Arguably the most vicious form, so hearing that it could buy so much time is awesome. Nonetheless, I'm sorry for your loss.

Re: Prostate cancer could be treated by destroying tumors with electric currents

#14

Post by canucker2016 »

foepys wrote: post #8
thr717272 wrote: post #7

First time it really hits home how large the risk is. 1/6 is a rather large risk.

It's more likely that you die with prostate cancer than because of prostate cancer. Yes, cancer is never good but for most men prostate cancer develops late and is usually growing very slowly and doesn't spread.

"watchful waiting" is the phrase used. see https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/12/prostate-cancer-...

The above link mentions "one in eight men" will be affected by prostate cancer.

If you have the deadly fast-growing type of prostate cancer, it'll be evident soon enough.

Re: Prostate cancer could be treated by destroying tumors with electric currents

#15

Post by copperx »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #9
foepys wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more likely that you die with prostate cancer than because of prostate cancer. Yes, cancer is never good but for most men prostate cancer develops late and is usually growing very slowly and doesn't spread.

In medical school, one of my mother's classes had an exercise one day which took this form: Here are a bunch of slides of prostate samples. Find the cancerous one. This led to the teacher getting so many questions about whether the slide someone was currently looking at was the cancerous one that he was forced to interrupt the class to make this more general announcement: There's a bit of cancer in everyone's prostat…

Surely the slides were of men of an advanced age, right? Otherwise that statement is false.

Re: Prostate cancer could be treated by destroying tumors with electric currents

#16

Post by thaumasiotes »

copperx wrote: post #15
thaumasiotes wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In medical school, one of my mother's classes had an exercise one day which took this form: Here are a bunch of slides of prostate samples. Find the cancerous one. This led to the teacher getting so many questions about whether the slide someone was currently looking at was the cancerous one that he was forced to interrupt the class to make this more general announcement: There's a bit of cancer in everyone's prostat…

Surely the slides were of men of an advanced age, right? Otherwise that statement is false.

Why do you think that?

Re: Prostate cancer could be treated by destroying tumors with electric currents

#17

Post by Dalewyn »

copperx wrote: post #15
thaumasiotes wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In medical school, one of my mother's classes had an exercise one day which took this form: Here are a bunch of slides of prostate samples. Find the cancerous one. This led to the teacher getting so many questions about whether the slide someone was currently looking at was the cancerous one that he was forced to interrupt the class to make this more general announcement: There's a bit of cancer in everyone's prostat…

Surely the slides were of men of an advanced age, right? Otherwise that statement is false.

I'm not a doctor, but my understanding has been that we all have cancer cells at any given point in time. Consider how many cells inside you are undergoing cell division; errors in cell division are where cancer cells come from.

The question is whether your body sees and kills the cancer cells; most of the time it does, which is why most of us can live pleasantly for most of our lives despite errors cropping up silently. What we term cancer are the cancer cells that slipped past our body's defences, growing into masses that cause no end of grief.

To put it in computer terms, it's like error correction in HDDs and SSDs and ethernet connections. Errors are inevitably going to occur while data is in transit, but they are of no concern so long as error correction and other such mechanisms can correct and recover. The errors do become a concern when they start slipping past such mechanisms, however.

Re: Prostate cancer could be treated by destroying tumors with electric currents

#19

Post by iSnow »

ars wrote: post #4

Is there anything about this that is specific to the prostate? Wouldn't this exact same treatment work on other accessible tumors, for example breast or skin?

I'll take an uneducated guess here: this works best for small and clearly defined tumors. You would have a hard time causing electroporation of cell membranes farther away from the electrodes without damaging too much healthy tissue.

Re: Prostate cancer could be treated by destroying tumors with electric currents

#20

Post by nickd2001 »

canucker2016 wrote: post #14
foepys wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more likely that you die with prostate cancer than because of prostate cancer. Yes, cancer is never good but for most men prostate cancer develops late and is usually growing very slowly and doesn't spread.

"watchful waiting" is the phrase used. see https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/12/prostate-cancer-... The above link mentions "one in eight men" will be affected by prostate cancer. If you have the deadly fast-growing type of prostate cancer, it'll be evident soon enough.

Someone I knew had the slow-growing case for quite some time. Then, it abruptly without warning turned into the aggressive form and killed him. Makes it very difficult to know what to expect. I guess frequent checks are necessary, because once its evident, you're already in a world of trouble...
Post reply on HN