Consider pancreatic cancer – the disease that killed Steve Jobs, e.g., despite the best medical technology money could buy.

Approximately 467,000 to 500,000 people die from pancreatic cancer worldwide each year.  It is the sixth most common cause of cancer death globally. Due to its high mortality rate and lack of early detection, the number of deaths is projected to rise significantly in the coming decades.  And no new drug to treat it has gained FDA approval – for 30 years!    Moreover, survival rates are bleak:  Metastatic (Stage IV): 3–6 months, though recent advancements may improve this.  Locally Advanced (Stage III): 6–10 months.

Until now. “Optune Pax is an FDA-approved, wearable medical device that delivers non-invasive alternating electric fields (Tumor Treating Fields or TTFields) to the abdomen to treat locally advanced pancreatic cancer. Designed for daily use, it is used alongside chemotherapy (gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel) to disrupt cancer cell division, improving median survival to 16.2 months.”

There is a cool back story here.  The late Technion professor Yoram Palti (he passed away in January, age 88)  was a biophysicist, expert on cell structure, and taught at the Technion medical school.  He had a wild idea.

Glioblastoma are fast-growing brain tumors, often not operable, very hard to treat.  But Palti knew that cancer cells, unlike normal healthy cells, divide incessantly.  When they do, the cell walls of the cancer cell become very thin.  What if we could put a strong magnetic field around the brain, so that when the cancer cells begin to divide, the magnetic field can explode and destroy the cell owing to its thin wall.  Palti was ridiculed. His startup began in his basement. He shaped a kind of helmet, or cap, connected to a source of electricity in a backpack.  Presto.  Magnetic field around the brain.  Cancer cell tries to divide and spread?  Pooofff…   Not with Novocure!

Fast forward:  Novocure today has a  market value of some $1.4 billion and has saved and prolonged a huge number of lives.  Rather than poison cancer cells (and to an extent, healthy cells),  just explode them.

Optune came too late to help Steve Jobs and many many thousands of pancreatic cancer sufferers.  But – if you do know someone near and dear who has been diagnosed with it,  inform them about Optune.  It’s not a cure – but those added months of life can be very vary valuable.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)