Sonodynamic therapy

Sonodynamic therapy is either a) a potential, but yet clinically unproven form of chemotherapy, or b) more likely, if it's being already sold to you, a quack cancer treatment. Sonodynamic therapy claims to use ultrasound and light to enhance the cytotoxic effects of drugs described as "sonosensitizers." In vitro and animal studies continue as of 2018, but clinical trials are still mostly lacking.[1][2] Current results are not considered compelling and it is rejected by both mainstream science and some woo-promoters alike.[3] Like with dichloroacetate, there is some genuine scientific interest, but this doesn't mean that the therapy is safe or effective, something which can be only shown with actual clinical trials.

The high-tech SPDT light-bed used at Hope4Cancer clinics..
Against allopathy
Alternative medicine
Clinically unproven
v - t - e

The promotion of sonodynamic therapy motivated an unprecedented initiative by health authorities in the UK to warn patients about bogus cancer treatments.[4]

A land of confusion

It's never a good sign when practitioners keep alternating between a wide set of science-sounding titles for the therapy itself (ranging from the utterly vague to the overly technical). Known aliases include:

  • Sonodynamic therapy
  • Activated therapy
  • Sono Photo Dynamic Therapy (SPDT)
  • Next Generation Photodynamic Therapy (NGPDT)
  • Ultrasound Activated PDT (UAPDT)

It should not be confused with the entirely legitimate photodynamic therapy (PDT). No way were the inventors trying to capitalise on that when they named it, no sir.

Quackery

As with all truly ground-breaking discoveries suppressed by the cancer industry, the studies supporting this are in low impact factor journals, including journals specialising in alternative therapies.[5]

Promoters of the sonodynamics attempted to push their nonsense on Wikipedia.[6]

gollark: `startup`
gollark: Also, you must now obey the potatOS privacy policy (https://osmarks.net/p3.html).
gollark: That is against SC rules, if I remember right. Also, you can't actually do that.
gollark: Well, you can make its startup immediately shut it down, but someone can just wipe it.
gollark: Impossible.

References
  1. http://thejns.org/doi/abs/10.3171/2017.6.JNS162398
  2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128121009000164
  3. Even the Daily Mail doesn't buy it.
  4. Sarah Boseley. "Cancer patients warned against clinics offering unproven treatments." The Guardian. 2012 November 30.
  5. Study about "The Tumoricidal Effect of Sonodynamic Therapy (SDT) on S-180 Sarcoma in Mice" in the journal Integrative Cancer Therapies, a journal dedicated to "alternative… and traditional medicine therapies."
  6. See this edit clearly promoting the woo-based company "SonneMed," plus a different editor attempting similar things.
This article is issued from Rationalwiki. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.