[emdowling]

According to the article, the treatment needs to be injected directly into the tumour (although this may change in the future) so the focus of these trials is melanomas. They tested on mice with both melanomas and lung tumours, and found that it reduced the size of the lung tumours even though it wasn't directly injected into them. Seriously exciting!

[mabbo]

That may also be a big deal for brain tumors.

Today, tumor removal means cutting a big hole in the skull, digging and scraping and trying to remove all of the tumor, then closing it all up and hoping you didn't cause any serious brain damage while you did all this. I mean, we use the term 'brain surgery' to mean something overly complex, detailed, and confusing.

My father had it done in March and we were warned ahead of time that he may go blind, or may have unexpected personality changes. It was all very frightening though he came out just fine, except for a wicked scar.

But imagine if instead, doctors could drill a tiny hole just large enough for a needle, inject some mRNA into the tumor and release the patient the same day.

[formerly_proven]

Proton therapy is another relatively recent development (recent as in "becoming more widely available"). Unlike photons (gamma/x-ray), protons are charged particles, so they follow a Bragg curve - releasing most of their energy in a narrow range before being fully stopped by the material. This can give very accurate control over where dose is delivered, and also leads to the somewhat paradoxical-seeming situation that the tissue "in front" of the cancer actually receives less dose than the cancer covered by it.