Detroit cancer center unveils new device for treating liver cancer at home

A new device is now available for treating advanced liver cancer at home using electromagnetic waves, the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute announced.

Called the “TheraBionic P1,” the device works via a small spoon-shaped antenna the patient places on their tongue, said co-inventor Dr. Boris Pasche at a news conference.

He said the device has the ability to treat a patient’s primary tumor and the spread of cancer throughout their body. The electromagnetic treatment is intended to block tumor growth without affecting healthy tissue, according to a news release.

“By holding the spoon in the mouth, the patient becomes an ‘antenna’ and receives the treatment throughout the body, so it treats the primary tumor as well as the metastasis,” Pasche said.

The FDA approved the device for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common kind of liver cancer, in September 2023. The treatment is available to patients for whom first- and second-line cancer therapies have not been effective. Patients use it for an hour at a time, three times each day.

The device is appealing because of its ease of use, said Dr. Anthony Shields, a member of Karmanos’ gastrointestinal and neuroendocrine oncology team.

The treatment it provides can prolong patients’ lives if it stabilizes the cancer—it also has the potential to shrink tumors— he told The Detroit News. It’s not expected to cure the disease, though.

Shields said the things the FDA looks for in new treatments include effectiveness, whether they improve on current standards of care and possible side effects of the treatment.

“As long as you make the disease stable, and you don’t decrease the quality of life—unfortunately, much of my chemotherapy does—then they can have a prolonged quality of life,” Shields said.

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