BY PASSING current through surgically implanted electrodes, a team of
Australian and British surgeons may be able to offer hope for patients with
inoperable liver cancer.
When bowel cancer spreads to the liver, the tumours are often widely
dispersed. This can make it impossible to simply cut them out, because the
surgery is likely to damage major blood vessels or destroy so much healthy
tissue that liver failure results. In electrolysis, surgeons pass an electric
current through electrodes implanted in each tumour. The current creates local
changes in pH that kill cells over a very precise area without damaging
blood…
