New cancer treatment method in the offing

In a development, which may bring a new ray of hope for cancer patients, the Institute of Aerospace Medicine here is working on curing the disease using electromagnetic beams which, unlike chemotherapy, only kills malignant cells without affecting the adjacent healthy ones.

As per the new treatment developed by the institute, a computer controlled device called Cytotron generates precise high intensity Quantum Magnetic Resonance beams from 288 specially designed guns which are focused to kill the affected tissues.

"The high specificity of QMR applications ensures that healthy cells in regions adjacent to the region of interest are not affected in any manner," said Wing Commander V G Vasishta, Chief of the Radio Diagnosis department, IAM.

"The beams also alters the mechanisms of cell division process of malignant cells and forces them to self-destruct, while leaving the healthy cells to divide naturally," he said.

According to Vasishta, the treatment, which is called Rotational Field Nuclear Quantum Magnetic Resonance is non-thermal, non-ionizing, safe, and has no known side effects.

So far 86 patients have been treated by this method, which involved daily one-hour exposure to Cytotron for 28 days and primary results have been highly encouraging in all the cases, he claimed.