| [Background and objective]Lung cancer is one of the most common malignancies worldwide both in incidence and mortality, causing leading cancer-related deaths in the world. NSCLC accounts for approximately80%of all lung tumors, and65%-80%of which presenting as local advanced or metastatic disease. For local advanced or metastatic lung cancer, treatment is limited. Surgical excision is impossible in most patients, while supportive care and chemotherapy is widely used in these patients. Chemotherapy, either first-line or second-line regimen, has low response rates, high side effects incidence, which cut quality of life (QOL) outcomes of advanced or metastatic lung cancer patients. Molecular targeted drugs are limited in application because of expensive and s drug resistance.Magnetic fields could inhibit tumor cell growth, which has been confirmed by many experimental results at home and abroad. It was reported that leukemia cells exposed to50hz magnetic fields and found that nucleosome DNA fragments produced, which indicated low frequency magnetic fields could induce tumor cell apoptosis. Other researcher inoculated gland cancer cell in nude mice, and then to place it in the field of5.5mT,50hz, then observe the tumor cells disappeared very quickly, whereas the control of the tumor cells invasion and its multiple organ, shown significant antitumor effects of low frequency magnetic field. The inhibitory effects of magnetic fields (MFs) on tumor cell proliferation in vitro and in vivo were reported in previous literatures. However, the effects of MFs to treat on cancer in clinical trial are absent.In this article, we investigated the effects on survival and palliation of general symptoms in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who were exposed to extremely low-frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MFs).[Methods]We investigated the effects on survival and palliation of general symptoms in13advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who were exposed to a420r/min,0.4T extremely low-frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MFs). Meanwhile, toxicity and side effects were assessed according to WHO criteria. An area included the primary tumor site, metastatic sites, and metastatic lymph nodes. And the patients were treated daily,2hours one day,5days per week for6-10weeks. The changes in general symptoms were performed during ELF-MFs treatment and2weeks after the completion of therapy. Physical examination, routine analysis of blood, liver function and biochemical test, ECG and kidney function test were evaluated before and at the end of the treatment. All13patients were followed up by way of outpatient service and telephone interview.[Results]Palliation of general symptoms. After the treatment, the clinical symptoms of all patients were investigated. General symptom improving of all subjects were shown in Table3. Before ELF-MFs treatment2patients had pleural effusion, and pleural effusion decreasing was observed in these cases at the end of treatment.5patients reported remission of short of breath in post treatment period compared with pre therapy of ELF-MFs. It is also reported that magnetic treatment could relieve cancer pain in various degree in5patients. Lacked appetite is common in advanced neoplasm patients,6patients in this study stated that they had increased appetite after treatment.2patients reported constipation and irregular bowel movement respectively before the treatment, and their bowel habit became regularly with once every1to2day and2to3day after treatment. Other clinical symptoms such as antisecosis and better sleep quality were detected in9and1patients. During the ELF-MFs treatment,2patients presented as symptoms improving at the middle of the therapy, while the palliation of symptoms disappeared at the treatment termination.Toxicity and side effects. Grade1and2arrest of bone marrow was detected in2(15.3%) patients and1(7.7%) patient respectively. Increased heart rate of3-5beats per minute was observed in2(15.3%) patients. There was an increase of temperature of0.5-1.0℃in3(23.1%) patients (Table4). No severe side effects and toxicity were detected in all13advanced NSCLC patients treated by ELF-MFs in our trail.Survival analysis. The13patients were all followed up either for33months or until death. The follow-up rate was100.0%. At the end of follow-up,9patients died,1patient was loss to follow-up, and3patients were still alive. The median survival was6.0months (95%CI:1.0-11.0months). The1-year and2-year survival rates were31.7%and15.9%, respectively (Fig.1).[Conclusion]This study confirms the findings of our pilot trial with a small number of patients suggest that ELF-MFs may be an effective, well-tolerated and safe method in treatment of advanced NSCLC to prolong survival and improve general symptoms moderately. It is the first report to describe survival and palliation of general symptoms, which merits further studies. |
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