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By Nancy Lapid, Health Science Editor

Hello Health Rounds readers! Today we feature two studies that could simplify treatments for neurologic disorders by allowing electrical impulses to reach deep into the brain without a need for surgery. We also share new data on a drug for treating recurrent prostate cancer and findings that may lead to new tools for estimating colorectal cancer risks.

In breaking news, see these stories from our Reuters journalists: Corporate America weighs risks of the Ozempic effect; WHO says medical aid ‘loaded and ready to go’ into Gaza; Dengue fever kills hundreds in Burkina Faso; and U.S. says lead emissions from small piston-engine aircraft pose public health danger.

Stimulation of the brain with electricity to treat neurological disorders requires complex operations such as the one shown here. But an experimental technique is allowing researchers to deliver deep brain stimulation noninvasively. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo

Researchers have found a noninvasive way to stimulate deep structures in the brain with electricity that could eventually expand the use of such treatments with less risk and cost to patients, according to two reports published on Thursday in Nature Neuroscience.

The new technique for deep brain stimulation (DBS), known as temporal interference, uses electrodes placed on different parts of the head to deliver electrical impulses to the brain without affecting the surrounding areas. 

DBS, which currently requires surgery to place electrodes inside the brain, is used to treat disabling symptoms of neurological disorders, including epilepsy, essential tremor, and Parkinson’s disease. It’s also being studied as a treatment for dementia, depression, chronic pain, and other conditions.

One report, from the UK Dementia Research Institute, describes successful use of the new technology to deliver electrical impulses to the hippocampus in 20 healthy volunteers.

The second report, from Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, details its use in 45 healthy volunteers to stimulate a deep brain area called the striatum.

Noninvasive electrical stimulation induced improvements in memory and motor skill learning in the UK and Swiss studies, respectively. 

Noninvasive DBS “opens up an entirely new avenue of treatment for brain diseases like Alzheimer’s which affect deep brain structures,” Dr. Nir Grossman of Imperial College London, who led the UK study, said in statement. “We hope it will help to scale up the availability of deep brain stimulation therapies by drastically reducing cost and risk.”

An experimental drug being developed by Pfizer and Astellas Pharma may help patients with recurrent prostate cancer live longer without their disease progressing, researchers reported on Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

A trial of the drug, enzalutamide, involved 1,068 relatively healthy men who had been treated for localized prostate cancer but within nine months had blood tests showing their cancer had returned. They received one of three treatment regimens designed to limit the effect of the sex hormone testosterone, which  helps prostate cancer cells grow and spread.

One group received enzalutamide, which blocks the effects of testosterone on cancer cells. Another received enzalutamide plus the current standard treatment, known as androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), which reduces the body’s production of testosterone, while the final group received ADT alone.

Enzalutamide reduced the risk of cancer spread or death by 37% over ADT alone, while the combination cut the risk of metastasis or death by 58% over ADT therapy, the researchers found.

Patients receiving ADT experience many unpleasant side effects such as sexual dysfunction, declining bone density and depression, but quality of life scores did not differ significantly among the three groups, they also found.

“While the combination therapy offers greater risk reduction, some men might prefer enzalutamide alone. It does a good job of preventing cancer spread or death, with different side effects that may be more acceptable for some men,” study leader Dr. Stephen Freedland of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles said in a statement.

“If these treatments are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, our results will be practice changing,” Freedland said.

An editorial published with the study noted that “a sizable proportion of patients (with prostate cancer) will never suffer or die from their metastases,” and for them, “cancer therapies can only result in harm.”

Much more research is needed “to determine which way a new treatment strategy tilts the scale for each individual patient,” the editorial said.

The assortment of bacteria living in our intestines might contribute to our odds of developing colorectal cancer, new findings suggest.

The presence of certain organisms might one day help identify people at higher risk, researchers said on Monday at the United European Gastroenterology Week 2023 meeting in Copenhagen.

They reported on data collected from 8,208 participants in a long-term Dutch study, including 214 who developed pre-cancerous colorectal lesions before fecal sampling between 2000 and 2015 and another 305 who developed lesions after fecal sampling between 2015 and 2022.

The samples showed the composition and function of the gut bacteria population, known as the microbiome, differed among individuals with pre-existing or future lesions and varied based on the type of lesion.

In particular, bacterial species from the family of Lachnospiraceae and the genera Roseburia and Eubacterium were linked with the future development of lesions, the researchers found.

“While we didn’t investigate mechanisms in this study, it is known from previous research that some of the bacterial species identified may have properties that could contribute to the development of colorectal lesions,” such as promotion of chronic inflammation, study leader Dr. Ranko Gacesa of University Medical Center Groningen said in a statement.

The findings suggest that the microbiome could act as a valuable tool for “advancing early detection methods for pre-cancerous lesions and colorectal cancer,” Gacesa said.

This newsletter was edited by Bill Berkrot.

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