This is different: Electric fields have potential as a cancer treatment
http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_60/iss_8/19_1.shtml?type=PTALERT
Healthy cells have regulating mechanisms that generally limit how
rapidly they can divide. Skin cells, for example, normally divide
about once every 30 days, but they can divide faster in response to a
wound that needs healing. Cancer, however, is characterized by cell
division that has gone out of control. In cancer cells, the
mechanisms that regulate division break down, and the cells spend
less time in the quiescent state and more time dividing.
Many chemotherapy drugs work by interfering with the cell-division
cycle. The drugs reach healthy cells and cancer cells alike, but they
do most of their damage to the cancer cells. Unfortunately, some
types of healthy cells divide as rapidly as cancer cells and are
badly damaged as well. Such cells are found in bone marrow, the
lining of the digestive tract, and hair follicles, so chemotherapy
patients often lose their hair and are susceptible to infection. The
damage to healthy cells limits the drug dose that a patient can
tolerate and therefore limits the treatment's effectiveness.
See: http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_60/iss_8/19_1.shtml?type=PTALERT
.
|