[Editors] MIT radar technology fights breast cancer

[Elizabeth Thomson]

MIT News Office
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA  02139-4307
Phone: 617-253-2700
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www

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MIT radar technology fights breast cancer

--Clinical results using microwave heat treatments are promising

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For Immediate Release
TUESDAY, NOV. 27, 2007
Contact: Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT News Office -- Phone: 617-258-5402  
-- Email: thomson at mit.edu

PHOTO, GRAPHIC AVAILABLE

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Treating breast cancer with a type of heat therapy  
derived from MIT radar research can significantly increase the  
effectiveness of chemotherapy, according to results from the fourth  
clinical trial of the technique reported online Nov. 25 in the  
journal Cancer Therapy.

In this study, large tumors treated with a combination of  
chemotherapy and a focused microwave heat treatment shrunk nearly 50  
percent more than tumors treated with chemotherapy alone. The  
microwave treatment is based on technology originally developed at  
MIT in the late 1980s as a tool for missile detection.

“It appears that heating the tumors drastically increased the  
effectiveness of the chemotherapy,” said Dr. William C. Dooley,  
director of surgical oncology at the University of Oklahoma and the  
principal investigator of the study. “The tumors shrank faster and  
died faster using the additional microwave hyperthermia on top of the  
chemotherapy.”

According to the National Cancer Institute, some 178,000 women and  
2,000 men were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007. An estimated  
40,000 women and 450 men will die of the disease this year.

In the latest clinical trial, fifteen patients received two microwave  
heat treatments, known as thermotherapy, along with four rounds of  
chemotherapy before surgery. The goal was to shrink tumors  
sufficiently to enable a breast-conserving lumpectomy procedure  
instead of the expected, and more invasive, mastectomy. Surgeons  
concluded that fourteen of the tumors shrunk enough for this to be  
possible.

In 1990, Dr. Alan J. Fenn, a senior staff member at MIT's Lincoln  
Laboratory, adapted the thermotherapy treatment from a system that  
used focused microwaves to detect missiles and block out interfering  
enemy signals.

“It's a very simple idea that can be applied to the treatment of many  
different cancers, including breast cancer,” Fenn said.

The microwaves, delivered by two applicators placed near the breast,  
kill the cancerous tissue while preserving normal breast tissue by  
targeting tumor cells that contain high amounts of both water and  
ions, Fenn explained. When the microwave energy passes through the  
tumor, the water molecules begin to vibrate and generate heat through  
friction. This process eventually elevates the cancer cells to a  
“high fever” of at least 108 degrees Fahrenheit in most cases,  
killing them.

“The treatment is well tolerated,” said Dr. Mary Beth Tomaselli,  
medical director at Comprehensive Breast Center in Coral Springs,  
Fla., and a surgeon who was also a co-investigator in the study. “The  
patients who have gone through it had minimal side effects and  
positive results.”

This is the fourth clinical trial of the therapy since 1999. In a  
Phase-I safety trial using microwave heat alone, researchers found  
that both small and large breast tumors could be decreased in size  
between 30 and 60 percent. In a Phase-II dose-escalation trial for  
small tumors, scientists increased the amount of heat until 100  
percent of the tumor cells were killed, prior to the patients'  
receiving a lumpectomy.

Next, researchers treated similar early-stage tumors and noticed that  
after the surgical removal, none of the patients had tumor cells  
remaining at the edge of the incision. This is important because  
additional breast surgery and/or radiation therapy are often  
recommended for patients that have cancer cells close to the edge of  
the lumpectomy surgical margin.

The treatment centers for the latest study, which focused on larger  
tumors, included Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, Calif., the  
University of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City, Comprehensive Breast Center  
in Coral Springs, Fla., St. Joseph's Hospital in Orange, Calif., and  
five additional sites. Celsion (Canada) Limited licenses the focused  
microwave thermotherapy technology from MIT, and has produced 10  
clinical systems to date to perform the procedures.

The team has applied for approval for a large-scale clinical trial  
from Health Canada (the equivalent of the US FDA) and will be  
applying for the same approval from the FDA. Researchers will then  
test the treatment in a randomized study of 228 patients who have  
large breast-cancer tumors. Patients will receive either chemotherapy  
alone or chemotherapy plus microwave heat treatments at one of six  
participating medical centers in the United States and Canada.

“The patients who have the best results in cancer treatment, at least  
with breast cancer, are patients who have a sequence of different  
therapies, including chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, and hormones,”  
said Dr. Hernan I. Vargas, associate professor of surgery at UCLA and  
lead author of the recent study. “Each one of the treatments adds a  
little bit. The thermotherapy might be one more tool that helps us  
fight this disease.”

Dr. Jay K. Harness of St. Joseph's Hospital in Orange, Calif., was  
also an author of the Cancer Therapy article.

--END-

Written by Allyson T. Collins, MIT News Office Correspondent