Absurd idea I had.

[rpayne88]

So my dog has stage four lymphoma. For those of you that don't know, that is a terminal illness. Maybe its just the fact that I don't want to face losing him, but I had an absurd idea (bear with me, you'll see where I'm going in a minute.

We know that:

-Electric current, not voltage, is what causes death by electrocution

-Ohm's law (V=IR) allows us to predict either the voltage, current, or electrical resistance of a circuit

-Resistors produce heat when current is passing through them. The higher the resistance, the more heat is produced

-More or less anything can be a resistor, including flesh and bone

-Cells will die if exposed to enough heat (This fact is used any time you cook meat to prevent food poisoning)

What my idea is:

Insert two electrodes into the body on opposite sides of a tumor. Then send a VERY high voltage, LOW amperage DC pulse through the tumor. The result (hopefully) will be a large temperature increase in the localized area, ideally killing any cancerous cells in the vicinity. Repeat for every tumor seen until the victim seems to be in remission.

Gist of the idea:

Cook the cancer using the victim's body as an electric oven.

Problems I can see:

-Bodily fluids acting as a coolant. This should be negligible due to the small amount of blood flow through capillaries.

-Pain. Fixed with a simple anesthetic.

-Electrodes arcing in the air instead of through the tumor. Solved by coating the copper electrode with a plastic insulating wrap almost all the way to the tip. The tip will be sharp enough to penetrate the skin similar to a hypodermic needle.

Pros:

-Cheap. Only expendable supplies for this are the electrodes and some electricity. The anesthetic shouldn't be mandatory, but I don't think anyone would attempt it with out. So one working with expensive, and sometimes, dangerous chemicals.

Note:

-I am NOT a doctor, oncologist, or electrical engineer. Please excuse me if I made some basic oversight due to my sophistry on the subjects.

Any thoughts or did I just become overly optimistic?

[Awaras]

I am pretty sure it would be very difficult to 'cook' a tumor without causing serious damage to surrounding healthy tissues. :/

[BigFatStupidHead]

My condolences; I feel very badly for your dog. One of my pets died in the past year from a terrible lung cancer.

One of the worst things about cancer is that it is a disease that can come about from a single cell. To fully wipe out a cancer, each and every cancer cell in the whole body must be killed, or it can, and probably will, recur. Also, because cancer cells can migrate through the body, there is no way to be certain of killing them all with a focused method like you've detailed. The reason that our usage of radiation and chemotherapy is effective is because cancerous cells spend an inordinate amount of energy on division, and much less on resistance. The radiation kills the cancer slightly faster than it kills healthy cells, and the chemotherapy prevents cell division to keep the cancer in check. (It is actually the chemotherapy that causes hair to fall out, and not the radiation treatments.) Because cancer cells are less robust than normal cells, they are also more suseptable to death from viral invasion - I believe that a great deal of anti-cancer viral research goes on in Russia.

[PakledHostage]

There was an interesting story a while back about using deactivated HIV to cure leukemia in humans. Such experimental treatment options aren't available for your pet though.

And while I am sorry to hear about your dog, please don't attempt anything to cause him/her any more suffering. Maybe the most caring thing you can do for your friend is to ease him/her out of this world peacefully.

[magnemoe]

My condolences; I feel very badly for your dog. One of my pets died in the past year from a terrible lung cancer.

Because cancer cells are less robust than normal cells, they are also more suseptable to death from viral invasion - I believe that a great deal of anti-cancer viral research goes on in Russia.

As I understand some of the viral tests uses an virus who is genetically modify to only infect cancer cells, they have an unique genetic signature as the cell divider limit is broken.

If they hit normal cells the virus is eaten, yes you would prefer something who only go after cancer cells, add the part from HIV who hide them from the immune system and you have an real cancer killer.

[lajoswinkler]

If curing lymphoma was that easy, there's be no deaths from lymphoma. But there are.

It's a type of cancer where the lymph nodes are affected, so it's already a direct path for metastases. Cancerous cells and clumps are tearing away from the cancerous tissue and get lodged throughout the body. Immune system takes care of it, but sometimes it doesn't catch up fast enough and a metastase is born, becoming a new node for spreading abnormal cells.

When an organism has a malignant tumour in other tissue, it first has to grow into the blood or lymph vessel, but in this case it's right there.

Just to clarify, cancerous cells are constantly appearing in bodies. We all have a handful of them right now, but out immune system keeps eating them.

You can't treat that by cooking the tissue. At best, you can cause more suffering to your dog because bacterial infection will probably occur. His immunity is weakened already, you don't want to cause him more harm.

Wet tissues are quite good conductors, so you'd need general anaesthesia which is another source of suffering.

Lymphoma is treated by chemicals that target fast replicating cells and, if very localized, additional surgery. In some cases radiation is used to treat a cancerous node. Survival percentage is not very high compared to some other neoplasms. Future will bring us customized viruses, probably GM HIV, for battling.

If your dog is suffering, the best thing you can do for him is to put him down. The pain animals experience during that procedure is less than the pain, both mental and physical, that would arise from slowly being eaten by cancer.

I know it's hard, but that's the most ethical way.

[Seret]

I am pretty sure it would be very difficult to 'cook' a tumor without causing serious damage to surrounding healthy tissues. :/

Exactly. I imagine you'd cause a lot less damage by just removing it surgically.

[Diche Bach]

This is effectively what radiation therapy does: kill the cancerous tissue, as well as a good bit of the surrounding tissues. However, for certain cancers it is effective and can make the difference.

Sadly, given the expense, I don't think either radiation or chemotherapy are practiced on pets. I suspect that even surgical resection of tumors is pretty limited for nonhuman animals.

I lost my old buddy "Starbuck" (border terrier) about 3.5 years ago. His liver was konking out and based on the vets recommendation we agreed to have him euthanized. He died right here with us in the living room, and I buried him in the back yard. I was in a state of severe grief for about a week, and I still think of him whenever I go in the back yard.

However, I pretty quickly decided to get a new dog (see avatar) and she has become just as much, if not more of a best friend! Nothing quite like getting a 10 week old puppy from a skilled breeder; like a blank canvas of love and friendship just waiting for your devotion.

[K^2]

The main problem is that resistance of tissue is pretty much predetermined. So in order to get a fixed amount of heat power, given by IR², you have to apply enough voltage to drive a high enough current. You are likely looking at lethal levels here.

Fortunately, there are workarounds. Electricity has been used as method of depilation for a while. The idea is to use current to kill a hair follicle without damaging surrounding tissues. This is achieved either with heat or galvanization. For the former, the solution is to apply AC instead of DC. You can easily deliver a lot of heat to the needle without significant current. With galvanization the cells are effectively killed chemically. This one is done with very low currents, just above sensitivity threshold, and all you have to do is get polarity right.

In either of these cases, you do want a better way to regulate current than simply messing with voltage. Slight changes in moisture can throw things way off. For the DC method, you have to use a current regulator, for example.

In principle, this approach should work for cancer. The problem is that you can only kill a small region of cells surrounding the needle. Killing something as large as a tumor is far more problematic.