Abstract 4128: Biofield therapy suppressed invasion and metastases of human pancreatic cancer
Authors: Yang Peiying , Chakraborty Sharmistha , Nguyen Phuong , Deng Defeng , Cusimano Andrew , Wei Daoyan , Cohen Lorenzo 
Published: March 2024

The NIH categorizes Biofield Therapy (BT) as therapeutic approaches within energy medicine that involve using the body's energy field (biofield) for therapeutic benefit. Although controversial, in some cases devices have been developed that mimic the electromagnetic fields (EMF) that are emitted from people when delivering BTs. We previously reported that BT significantly inhibited the growth of pancreatic cancer cells and liver metastasis in their relevant animal models mediated in part through modification of the cell cycle, reductions in cell voltage potentials, and down regulation of PI3K/Akt pathways. We expanded this research to examine the potential role of BT in anti-invasiveness in human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cells and animal models. We found that PANC-1 cells treated with BT (15 min) displayed 55% less invading cells than that of untreated incubator control and sham control cells (P &lt; 0.001). Similar results were observed in human PDAC L3.7 cells and mouse pancreatic cancer KPCY cells. These experiments were replicated 8 times for Panc-1 cells and 4 times for L3.7 cells. Additionally, migration capacity was tested using the transwell migration and scratch assays. Consistent with the result of cell invasion assays, BT treatment also led to significant reduction of migration of PANC-1 and L3.7 cells by 34% and 41%, respectively, compared to sham controls. Two additional therapists independently replicated the anti-invasiveness and anti-migratory effects of BT on these PDAC cells. This suggests the replicability of these findings across studies and therapists. In a repeated PANC-1 mouse orthotopic model, we found that only a third of BT treated mice had visible liver nodules whereas liver metastasis was observed in more than half of mice in the untreated colony control and sham control groups. Furthermore, BT treatment significantly reduced liver tumor burden by 73% compared to that of the sham control group (p &lt; 0.05), which was similar to that observed in the previous study. Similar to the prior PANC-1 mouse model, in the current study BT treatment had only a moderate impact on the growth of primary pancreatic tumor. We assessed certain markers indicative of cell status as well as pathways associated with migration and invasion and these will be presented at the meeting. Our findings suggest that exposure to BT reduced cellular invasion and migration processes and profoundly reduced metastasis of pancreatic tumor in an animal model. This study is in part supported by Emerald Gate Charitable Trust.

Citation Format: Peiying Yang, Sharmistha Chakraborty, Phuong Nguyen, Defeng Deng, Andrew Cusimano, Daoyan Wei, Lorenzo Cohen. Biofield therapy suppressed invasion and metastases of human pancreatic cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(6_Suppl):Abstract nr 4128.