Empowered Patient Podcast Using Pulse Electric Field and Direct Tumor Injections to Target Advanced Cancers with Dr. Jason Williams The Williams Cancer Institute
Dr. Jason Williams, President and Director of Interventional Oncology and Immunotherapy at the Williams Cancer Institute, uses a combination of Pulse Electric Field technology to ablate tumors and direct injection of immunotherapy drugs into the tumor to stimulate the immune system. This approach can be used in conjunction with traditional cancer treatments and has fewer side effects than standard immunotherapy. This method is part of the broader trend in cancer research to provide a more targeted approach to treating tumors.
Jason explains, "Our big focus is going to the tumor itself, so we do treatments directly at the tumor, and we do a combination of things. We do things that will be considered ablation where we're using different technologies or energies — I'll explain — particularly, we use one called Pulse Electric Field (PEF), which kills the tumor by essentially shocking it, and that kills it in a way that actually makes the immune system see it better. You're not trying to kill all of the tumor, you're trying to kill pieces for the immune system. Then we inject drugs into that area of the tumor, particularly immunotherapy drugs, but it can be other drugs as well, and just really taking the fight to the cancer right in the tumor."
"I think that our mistake in cancer treatments is that we're not addressing the tumors directly. I mean, it's one thing to expect that you're going to take a drug orally or intravenously and that it's going to arrive and make it to the cancer cells. Still, the other way is to go right into it, putting the drugs there, and particularly with immunotherapies, where you want to attract the immune system to it. You want those drugs in the cancer, you don't want them just everywhere in the body."
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