Each month Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Jon Weingart comments on news from the field of neurosurgery, discussing new discoveries and research in the context of the larger picture of current practice. Brain Matters is created with an eye toward informing both patients and practitioners in their decision making.
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Each month Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Jon Weingart comments on news from the field of neurosurgery, discussing new discoveries and research in the context of the larger picture of current practice. Brain Matters is created with an eye toward informing both patients and practitioners in their decision making.
January 21, 2016 – Electrical Fields and Brain Tumors
Brain Matters – Johns Hopkins Medicine Podcasts
1 minute 6 seconds
9 years ago
January 21, 2016 – Electrical Fields and Brain Tumors
Anchor lead: Can a helmet using electrical fields improve survival from some brain tumors? Elizabeth Tracey reports
A helmet employing alternating electrical field pulses has been shown to improve survival from glioblastoma, one type of deadly brain tumor, a study published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association found. Jon Weingart, a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins, explains the strategy.
Weingart: It involves using what’s called tumor treating fields or low wave frequency electric fields that are applied to the scalp, which the mechanism is to disrupt cellular biology such that it keeps cells from being able to divide. So it’s a low intensity microwave in a way that disrupts cellular division and thus would affect any process that requires cellular division to progress, which is what tumors do. :30
Weingart says the helmet is custom made and used alongside surgery and possibly also chemotherapy. He says people wear the helmet for the majority of the day and must shave their heads to do so, but most have found the process tolerable and continue their activities. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.
Brain Matters – Johns Hopkins Medicine Podcasts
Each month Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Jon Weingart comments on news from the field of neurosurgery, discussing new discoveries and research in the context of the larger picture of current practice. Brain Matters is created with an eye toward informing both patients and practitioners in their decision making.
