Banner touts electrical cancer treatment
Brian Anthony Hernandez
The Arizona Republic
PHOENIX (Aug. 5, 2009) -- Millisecond bursts of electricity flowed pass Maria Bartz's skin behind her rib cage and straight to her sick liver.
Bartz lay motionless as probes emitting as much as 3,000 volts and as little as 1,500 volts - a similar amount used to kill insects in electric fly swatters - poked through the right side of her body.
"The probes look like small shish kabobs," said Kevin Hirsch, medical director of Interventional Radiology at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center.
Radiologists at the center recently added a new weapon to their arsenal of tools they use to combat liver cancer: irreversible electroporation.
Unlike traditional invasive surgical procedures, chemotherapies or radiation treatments, the new method keeps organs intact and spares nerves, blood vessels and other healthy areas of the body.
Last month, with Bartz as their patient, physicians at Banner Health became the first facility in the U.S. to commercially use the ultrasound-guided technique to treat liver cancer.
Radiologist Charley Raker used a minimally invasive tool called a NanoKnife to open tumor cell membranes in Bartz, who was diagnosed with liver cancer in May.
Instead of burning or freezing the tumor, as is done with other methods, the NanoKnife released electric pulses to kill her tumor, which dissolved, leaving healthy liver tissue to grow and repopulate the area.
"I didn't feel any pain after the treatment," said Bartz, 66, of Chandler.
