8. Zapping Prostate Cancer
What It Can Do: Eliminate Invasive Surgery
Discovered By: Novartis
Est. Cost: Unknown*
Over the course of their lives, close to 15% of all men, or about 1 in 6, will develop prostate cancer, and every year, approximately, 300,000 men (35,000 in the U.S.) lose their battles. When treated in the early stages the 5-year survival rate of patients is about 100%, however, once it has metastasized, that drops to about 1 in 3.
Zapping Prostate Cancer ©Image Point Fr / Shutterstock.com
Dr. Oliver Sartor and his team have come up with a treatment called lutetium-11-PSMA-617 that, when administered intravenously into patients whose cancer has metastasized, more than doubles their survival time. It does this by finding the proteins that are predominantly found in the cells of prostate cancer, and zapping them with a radioactive particle.