Can Devices Provide A New Treatment Option for Glioblastoma?

Can Devices Provide A

New Treatment Option for Glioblastoma?

Experts at the Houston Methodist Kenneth R. Peak Brain & Pituitary Tumor Treatment Center are developing new glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) treatment options, including an innovative technology that provides anticancer therapy through a wearable device.

GBM is the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer. After 40 years of research, median survival with

David S. Baskin, MD Santosh Helekar, MD, PhD aggressive treatment has only improved from 9 to 15 months and the quality of life during this time is often poor. A team of researchers has developed a new method of generating an oscillating magnetic field (OMF) that eradicates cancer cells via a wearable device. These studies were made possible by the prior invention of a wearable miniaturized multifocal transcranial magnetic stimulator by Santosh Helekar, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurosurgery, and Henning Voss, associate professor of physics in radiology at Weill Cornell Medical College. The device uses microstimulators, called oncoscillators, that rotate strong neodymium permanent magnets-devised patterns. Helekar and his colleagues have produced selective anticancer effects in patient-derived GBM and breast cancer cells in culture without damaging cultured normal cells. On a cellular level, they demonstrated that when OMFs are applied in a defined pattern at a certain range of frequencies, they disrupt electron flows in the mitochondrial electron transport chain that drives cellular fuel production. This disruption leads to the generation of reactive oxygen species, triggering a cascade of cellular events that leads to cancer cell apoptosis. Compared with normal cells of the same tissue type, cancer cells have critically high levels of reactive oxygen species at baseline that are poised to trigger apoptosis if further increased.

With this information, the investigators further optimized the stimulus parameters of OMF stimulation and confirmed safety and efficacy in a humanized preclinical model of GBM. They then modified the Helekar-Voss Transcranial Permanent Magnet Stimulator device to construct a wearable prototype for humans called an Oncomagnetic device along with the associated hardware, software and mobile applications.

We believe that our current investigations may help to establish Oncomagnetics as a GBM treatment that does not have the limitations of chemotherapeutic agents. Given that various cancerous cell types are susceptible to apoptosis by OMF-induced accentuation of reactive oxygen species, we hope to modulate ”our nascent OMF treatment to target other cancers.

– David S. Baskin, MD

Kenneth R. Peak Presidential Distinguished Chair & Program

Director, Neurosurgery Residency, Department of Neurosurgery

Professor, Neurosurgery

Houston Methodist