SFocusing On Patients

Cautery tool uses radio wave electricity to kill liver, kidney tumors
(continued)
McGahan is interested in using radiofrequency ablation on breast, prostate and lung tumors. He's had good results using it to remove a benign but painful bone tumor known as an osteoid osteoma, and he's about to publish the results of successfully using it on animal tissue to kill breast tumors. His best results so far have been on patients with localized liver tumors.

"We've been able to stop their disease long enough for them to undergo a liver transplant," he says. "At the very least we've been able to prolong life."

It's no magic bullet, McGahan and Schneider point out. Sometimes tumors recur and need additional treatments. And metastatic cancer continues to be a tricky foe; tumors eradicated from one organ tend to pop up elsewhere.

But for people who can't undergo surgery, says Schneider, "it just might offer a chance for a cure when none existed before."