Can musical frequencies destroy liver cancer tumours? [VIDEO]

At the Singularity Summit held at the Sandton Convention Centre this week, specialists from across the world gathered to share their ideas on the future of medicine, with one doctor sharing his passion for music and how he is using it to fight cancer.

Dr Martin Zschornak, a German radiation oncologist and music producer also known as DJ Seth Schwartz, has combined his enthusiasm for people and music to try change the way cancer patients heal.

‘Every day, I watch my patients fight illness’

During Zschornak’s presentation, he shared his experience of working with cancer patients and contrasted it with the nightlife he often takes part in. He said he felt compelled to share the healing power of musical notes.

“Every day my patients lay inside of linear accelerators (radiation machines), thick machines that aim invisible beams of photons and electrons at their tumours.

“I watch them fight with everything they have, and then I leave the hospital, pick up my violin and sometimes I play for them too,” he said.

‘One living organism’

“For most of my life, these two worlds: medicine and music, lived in different universes,”

“Medicine and its protocol, its peer review and music with its mystery and power to make a room full of strangers, breathe like one living organism.”

He then started an exercise which required every individual in the room to partake in a deep breath in, and an exhale while sounding the D note he played on the violin. “Aaah,” everyone said as the chord reverberated through the room.

Dr. Zcshornak creates one living organism of sound in a room full of people at the Singularity Summit South Africa. Video: Caslian Scott

Medicine and music

For a moment, a room full of strangers breathed together calmly, creating a beautiful sound that expressed the immense power of music and its ability to connect others in a way that cannot be seen but is deeply felt and heard.

“And sound, the thing that you just made together is becoming a serious tool against cancer,” said Zschornak.

The violin

He reflected on his days growing up and his two obsessions: the violin and cancer, which he described as “divine and healing”.

“I was captivated by the idea that a piece of wood, some strings, some horsehair and a bit of rosin could make people laugh and cry.

“The second was medicine and cancer, which is the deepest puzzle I could imagine.”

He explained that he could imagine cells that have forgotten how to play together in the orchestra and have gone on a rampage of their own, which encouraged him to pursue both.

Playing both sides

From being behind the decks at Burning Man festivals to shifts at a German Hospital Radiation Oncology Centre treating patients, Zschornak said that he noticed when the music finds the right frequency, something happens that goes beyond emotion.

“First the room goes quiet, then it starts to breathe differently, and the bodies of strangers begin to move as one.”

“I felt the wave of something I couldn’t explain yet.”

Histotripsy

Using a quote from Nikola Tesla on finding the sequence of the universe, Zschornak said that one should be taken through a process of energy, frequency and vibration.

Uncovering the term histotripsy, Zschornak attributed the concept to a team of researchers in Michigan who spent over two decades developing the treatment.

“The principle behind histotripsy [is] quite pure poetry that is precisely focused ultrasound waves of microscopic cloud-like bubbles inside the tumour.”

He explained that these bubbles expand and collapse, leading to the tumour liquifying and the body clearing it away.

Body’s immune system response

The focused ultrasound frequencies are applied from outside the body, creating a cloud of bubbles that collapse in under a millisecond, causing the tumour to liquefy and clear away.

“The immune system finished the job,” Zschornak said. “No incision, no radiation dose, no heat, just sound.”

Zschornak also pointed out that in October 2023, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorised histotripsy for the treatment of liver tumours in humans.

Test results

“So far we treat about 3 000 liver-related patients and over 58 hospitals worldwide,” Zschornak added.

He noted that tests show these methods are effective in destroying 50% to 75% of cancerous cells, allowing the body’s immune system to get rid of the rest.

“And the cancer did not come back.”

Music as treatment

Zschornak encouraged patients to ask their doctors whether music is part of their treatment, to seriously consider therapeutic ultrasound, and to dare to cross the line between art and science.

The first time he noticed an impactful difference was when treating a young female patient, diagnosed with a brain tumour.

“The clinic had become her whole world and in the middle of it all, she was getting married,” Zschornak said. “She had no way of organising anything, in order to have the wedding she had imagined.”

Hospital ward becomes wedding venue

He decided to bring his violin to the ward where the team orchestrated a ceremony for her.

“For a few minutes, she was not a patient, she was a bride.

“And we weren’t doctors and nurses in a clinical environment anymore; there we were witnesses of life being lived.

“I watched her face change, and as a doctor I know that look, it’s the nervous system arriving somewhere that is safe and filled with gratitude,” Zschornak said.

Music and the nervous system

He explained that this moment left him with a question: What’s the relationship between what music can do to the nervous system and what the nervous system can do to rewire the brain?

“Last year, the Journal of Cancer pulled 13 studies of music during radiotherapy where more than 1 000 patients noted reduced anxiety levels.

“Fatigue [also reduced], especially in Columbia, where a randomised trial of 110 patients attended one single session of live group music therapy during chemo.

“The anxiety dropped and the well-being rose compared to the standard care alone.”

‘It may or may not work’

“So music can work, and sometimes it doesn’t,” Zschornak admitted.

He emphasised the importance of designing and testing the right sound, at the right time, in the right setting.

“I treat patients with radiotherapy every day and I know what fear does to the body, so let me be precise with where the evidence stops,” Zschornak said.

“We know music lowers anxiety and that early sickness shifts stress hormones and immune markers, but the last thing in the chain is still missing – do any of these change the tumour itself?” Zschornak asks.

The research gap

He said nobody has shown whether music actually changes the tumour itself and added that he will keep working on this frontier.

“I know sound will not replace radiotherapy and will not treat every cancer, but I believe sound can be a part of that cancer care,” said Zschornak.

“Sound is already breaking tumours a part in hospitals today, sound is not a background noise, sound is physics, soundtracks, biology and increasingly sound is medicine.

“The musician and the oncologist don’t have to be two different people standing on opposite sides of the patient.

“No, they can be the same person with the same instrument, asking the same questions from a different angle.”