More info on TTF / GBM clinical trial

[Since writing this story about TTF I have talked to several people and learned a lot. I am not sure what I am allowed to quote so, at the risk of failing to give due credit, I'll report some remarks from various professionals without attribution. Is this in the spirit of journalists who protect sources? I suppose not but I feel undecided about this issue.]

One thing is now clarified. The government web posting that listed Dr. Gutin as running a clinical test on TTF at MSKCC (ClinicalTrials.gov) is out of date. (I must write a note of apology to Dr. G. I was intemperate.) Dr. Omuro told me that there was once such a program there but they no longer have one. The current trials are now occurring at the Weill Cornell Medical College. I have been told that the electric fields in TTF trials in ophthalmology have been are `unpredictable' and have caused burns. In the case of the others I have heard from, especially our own doctors, this is too risky a business without a sufficient guarantee of success.

Sara has this to say:

Cells, networks, and organisms are indeed complex systems, in the sense that it is very hard to predict the global effects of localized interventions. I have seen many ideas that looked very logical and very promising when explained at the cellular level eventually fail when large clinical trials started. Sometimes the effect is simply not as expected. Sometimes the trials reveal unexpected interference with other systems as well as toxicity. Very few if any of these treatments deliver on their early promise.

I can see the appeal of this proposal for a simple intervention. But we do not know the effects that constant application of electric fields can have in the brain. What about cognitive abilities, which depend on electrical interactions among neurons? What about physical damage from the relentless application of EM fields? The TTF literature emphasizes that they interfere with cell division, but what else will they interfere with?

Predrag's notes: If Barbara gets into the GBM clinical trial (that can be done only after completion of the radiation and concurrent TMZ chemo), her hair would be shaved, electrodes attached, and she would have to have carry a 7 lb pack 24/7, indefinitely (see illustrations here).