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Comment by kla-s | Hacker News Reader

Any serious ideas for a recently removed glioblastom?

I was short the stock of a company called Novocure, and my thesis was based on the science. Novocure developed a literal helmet you wear on your head. It's designed to generate alternating electric fields at specific frequencies and blast them into your brain. I was skeptical, because biotech frauds are a dime a dozen, and nothing I could read in their literature made sense to me as a mechanism of action against GBM.

The randomized, double-blind phase 3 trials came out and it turns out the helmet almost triples 5 year survival rates. For "high compliance" patients (i.e. those that followed their directions and wore the helmet in accordance with the treatment plan), 5 year survival rates jumped 6x. They're selling $600mm of these helmets a year now. Progress is uneven but it's always coming!

What in the world is the putative mechanism behind that? That's fascinating.

I guess bioelectricity. Michael Levin is the guy to look at afaik.

Thanks @missedthecue, i wasn't aware this was productized and tested (though hoped it was)

Michael Levin focuses on manipulation of intercellular bioelectric signaling. This research is in electric field generation. They both involve electricity, but only one is modulating bioelectric circuits. The other is essentially vibrating certain cells to death.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9574373/

The biggest effect seems to be interfering with mitosis (cell division) and causing cells that attempt mitosis to die.

In adult human brains, most cells don't divide, except cancer cells.

Hmm so non-ionizing electromagnetic fields DO have a biological influence apart from thermals now? That's... concerning news?

I was highly confident there was absolutely no way in the world wearing Bluetooth Earphones would have any kind of impact on my brain, but now this would seem like a possibility?

If you review the TTField information, you can see that the fields these devices emit are much stronger and at lower frequency bands. For instance, a smartphone held 5 cm away emits roughly 0.025 V/cm, whereas the helmet we're discussing hits you with anywhere between 1.0 and 3.5 V/cm. So the lower band is about 40 times stronger than a smartphone held against your temple!

Wireless headphones emit 10-400 times less energy than smartphones do. My personal takeaway is that you're safe.

3 orders of magnitude of margin in terms of power is still way less than I expected, considering that I have these devices on my head for 3 order of magnitude more hours than people using that treatment.

Of course there are dose effects and non linearities so we should very very likely be good. But huh.

Pessimist in me wants to say: people with brain cancer who can keep up with daily life and follow complex operating instructions for esoteric hardware to a tee for prolonged period of time are self-selecting for better outcomes.

The treatment has been improving over the years, and the survival rate is going up. It’s definitely one of the most challenging forms, if our progress rate is anything to go by.

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