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An Ohio University research team is challenging a long held belief about osteopathic medicine and cancer treatment
By: David Forster
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — When we talk about cancer, we often refer to different stages. Late-stage cancer means the tumors have spread and colonized other parts of the body. This process is known as metastasis. The traditional treatments are radiation and chemotherapy, but survival rates drop significantly once cancer spreads. A team of researchers at Ohio University is challenging a longstanding assumption about cancer treatment at this stage of the disease.
Chris Walsh is a student researcher at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. Walsh was part of a research team that recently published a study looking at use of therapeutic touch as a possible treatment.
He sat down to speak with WOUB’s David Forster for “Modern Science.”
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
On the presumptions surrounding the use of osteopathic medicine on cancer patients
“Osteopaths use their hands to diagnose and treat patients. We are able to feel the body, see how it reacts to our touch. You can actually diagnose various diseases just by the feel of the body.
“A lot of cancer patients are actually not eligible for osteopathic manipulation because there is a longstanding fear that touch can cause cancer metastasis. This is really from studies that have looked at primary tumors, where the tumor actually started. There’s been studies that have shown that if you touch that area, you can actually spread cancer cells from that area and cause them to metastasize.”
How Walsh was inspired to research these presumptions
“I kind of pushed back a little bit and he told me I should go and read the literature. What I found was that all the studies have only looked at the effect of touch on the primary tumors. I could not find any study that looked at the effect of touch on a metastatic tumor.”
On how the study was conducted using mice
“I would actually try to simulate the metastatic process by injecting cancer cells — I was using melanoma cells from a mouse — into their tail vein, which would spread sort of all throughout their body. Then I would start doing a mock manipulation technique to try to simulate the most aggressive manipulation that you could do on a human.”
What the study found
“I was shocked. The first experiment that I did, the mice that received the manipulation technique — I did it every other day for one month after the mice had cancer — I found that they had less cancer than the mice that did not receive the touch.
“This really blew my mind. It blew my mentors’ mind because every textbook that you read says this should increase the cancer growth and it should increase cancer spread.”
On what could come next for cancer treatment
“What my experiment really wanted to show is that touching a patient with metastatic disease is not dangerous. A lot of those patients with diffuse metastatic disease who have the most symptoms, who have the most pain throughout their body, they’re often barred from receiving manipulation techniques from osteopaths. Or a lot of times people are afraid just to touch them.”
“If I could do anything from this point on, it is to inspire other people to look at this and test out the idea if touching cancer can spread cancer. Because if it doesn’t, or if it can actually help treat cancer, then we could be on to a whole new avenue of cancer therapy that is not only safe, but can be given at home from one of your loved ones.”
The first draft of the transcript used for this story was created in Adobe Podcast, which includes an AI transcription tool. A WOUB news editor then reviewed, corrected and reformatted the transcript before publication.