Biological Electro-Tumor Therapy (synonym: Galvanotherapy; Electro-Cancer Therapy (ECT)) is a gentle direct current therapy of cancer patients in which cancer cells are directly destroyed by exposure to electricity via plates on the skin or platinum needles in the tumor.
Indications (areas of application)
- Localized and advanced breast carcinoma (breast cancer) growing beyond the breast and its metastases.
- Head and neck tumors and their often very large lymph node metastases.
- Cervical carcinoma (cancer of the cervix), vaginal carcinoma (cancer of the vagina).
- Colon carcinoma (colon cancer) and its metastases.
- Hepatocellular carcinoma
- Pancreatic carcinoma (cancer of the pancreas)
- Lung tumors (bronchial carcinoma) and metastases.
- Rectal cancer (rectal cancer) and a rectal cancer recurrence, that is, recurrence of rectal cancer.
- Prostate carcinoma (prostate cancer).
- Malignant melanoma, basal cell carcinoma (BZK; basal cell carcinoma) and sarcoma.
- Hemangioma
The procedure
The prerequisite for the development of Biological Electro-Tumor Therapy (BET) was the fact that in cancer patients in the tumor and surrounding tissue a strong hyperacidity of the cancer cells – that is, an increased current sensitivity of the cells – could be detected.
The current sensitivity of cancer cells is the basis of the method also known as Galvano therapy:
In current therapy BET, tumor cells are not destroyed by surgery or radiotherapy (radiation therapy), but gently and non-invasively by means of direct current. The treatment is carried out either by means of two plate electrodes placed on the skin or by means of platinum electrodes. The platinum electrodes are placed in and around the tumor after prior local anesthesia. Due to the higher conductivity of the tumor cells and its environment, which is caused by hyperacidity, a larger amount of current flows here than in healthy tissue. Thus, similar to a car battery, positively charged particles move to the cathode and negatively charged ions move to the opposite pole, the anode. This depolarization can create acid within the cancer cell and disrupt the membrane transport of the cells, which can destroy them. The patient- and tumor-specific selection of current strength and voltage results in acid values in the affected cells that are far outside the natural range. The side effects are minor: tingling of the skin during treatment, slight erythema (area reddening of the skin) for one to two days, rarely slight scabbing as a sign of overdosage.
The duration of a treatment is usually three hours, 7-10 treatments are performed at intervals of 3-7 days. The treatment can be combined with local hyperthermia and other procedures.
Bone metastases are not sufficiently reached by the current.
Biological electro-tumor therapy is used for localized but also advanced – that is, growing beyond the respective organ – tumors and metastases that are inoperable and cannot be sufficiently cured by radiotherapy or chemotherapy, or if the patient refuses these procedures.
Your benefit
If traditional cancer therapy has failed for you or you are looking for a complementary treatment method, Biological Electro-Tumor Therapy (BET) offers another good option.
