Radio waves kill potential esophageal cancer cells

By Gene Emery

BOSTON (Reuters) - In a study that could dramatically reduce the need for surgery to prevent esophageal cancer, doctors reported on Wednesday that they can significantly cut the risk of a tumor by using radio waves to scorch suspicious-looking cells.

Barrett's esophagus, in which repeated bouts of acid reflux have caused the cells just above the entrance to the stomach to become abnormal, is found in one of every 62 Americans, although most do not have pre-cancerous cells.

When it causes a tumor, the five-year survival rate is less than 15 percent. Esophageal cancer kills about 14,000 people in the United States annually.

Dr. Nicholas Shaheen of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and colleagues tested 127 patients with Barrett's, giving them either the heat treatment, known as radiofrequency ablation, or a sham procedure.

Abnormal cells disappeared in nearly 78 percent of the patients who received the heat treatment compared to 2 percent of people in a control group given fake surgery, they reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

After a year, 9.3 percent who received the sham therapy developed esophageal cancer, compared to only 1.2 percent of those whose suspicious cells were seared.

The researchers, who will present their two-year results at a medical meeting next week, cautioned that because only five patients in the study developed cancer, the results are not completely reliable.

"The study was really designed to look to see if we could get rid of the Barrett's, not to look and see if we could get rid of the cancer," Shaheen said in a telephone interview.