translated from Spanish: The novel cancer treatment that promises to make chemotherapy more effective and has fewer side effects

A novel therapy to treat cancer was first tested in a patient in the UK.
Known as Acoustic Cluster Therapy, it is a treatment that seeks to reduce the side effects of chemotherapy as well as improve its effectiveness.
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“Some chemos make you lose your hair, some don’t. But it’s a traumatic situation. And that’s just one of the side effects,” Karen Childs, the first person in the world to receive this treatment that is currently on trial, tells the BBC.
“Others are extreme fatigue and nausea. And if you have them consistently, it’s very hard to live with it,” adds Childs, which is being treated for secondary liver cancer after her first diagnosis in November 2013.
Bubbles
In traditional chemotherapy, drugs circulate throughout the body, but cluster acoustic therapy directs them directly into the tumor.
The pioneering technique – researched by the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and the Cancer Research Institute – involves injecting the patient, along with chemotherapy, small microdroplets and bubbles.
These bubbles are then activated by ultrasound waves in the tumor area.
Ultrasound waves cause cancer cells to get more amounts of drugs. When activated, they become larger and widen the walls of the tumor, allowing more chemotherapy to reach the cancer cells.
This treatment could improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy because it is better directed to where the tumor is located and opens up the possibility of reducing chemotherapy doses, which in turn would reduce the severity of its side effects.
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“We know that the more chemotherapy we supply, the more the tumor shrinks,” Udai Banerji, a professor at the Uk Cancer Research Institute, tells the BBC.
But there comes a time when the patient starts to get sick (from chemotherapy), Banerji continues.
“This treatment tries to use the same amount of chemotherapy used today, but significantly increasing this amount within the cancer,” he adds.
Guinea pig
For Childs, participating in this rehearsal is exciting.
“You feel vulnerable, but at the same time it’s very exciting. Am I a guinea pig? It’s pretty stressful,” he explains to the BBC.
“With chemotherapy, you always expect an easier, less aggressive way to treat patients, and this can be part of that process,” Karen Childs.
At this stage of the trial, experts want to determine the effectiveness of the therapy as well as its safety.
Treatment will be used to treat patients with tumors in the liver that have spread from the colon or pancreas.
For Childs, being a part of this essay is stressful but also exciting. If successful, cluster acoustic therapy could be tested with more patients and other cancers.
Jeffrey Bamber, a professor of physics applied to medicine, who helped develop and evaluate this technology, believes that the technique opens the way to technology that “concentrates more of the drug in the tumor.”
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“We hope in the future to be able to treat tumors more effectively while reducing the rate and severity of side effects.”
“In the long run, we hope that this technology can be particularly beneficial in difficult-to-treat tumors, such as pancreatic tumors.”
“It could also be helpful in new types of treatment such as immunotherapy.”

Original source in Spanish