Entropy Production in a Cell and Reversal of Entropy Flow as an Anticancer Therapy

The entropy production rate of cancer cell is always higher than healthy cell under the case of no external field applied. Different entropy production between two kinds of cells determines the direction of entropy flow among cells. The entropy flow is the carrier of information flow. The entropy flow from cancer to healthy cell takes along the harmful information of cancerous cell, propagating its toxic action to healthy tissues. We demonstrate that a low-frequency and low-intensity electromagnetic field or ultrasound irradiation may increase the entropy production rate of a cell in normal tissue than that in cancer, consequently reverse the direction of entropy current between two kinds of cells. The modification of PH value of cells may also cause the reversal of the direction of entropy flow between healthy and cancerous cells. So, the biological tissue under the irradiation of electromagnetic field or ultrasound or under the appropriate change of cell acidity can avoid the propagation of harmful information from cancer cells. We suggest that this entropy mechanism possibly provides a basis for a novel approach to anticancer therapy. Thermodynamic entropy is expressed by (1) ln B S k W = where W is the number of microscopic states which are related to a given macroscopic thermodynamic state and kB is the Boltzmann constant. Entropy is a measure of disorder. From general physical principles, Schrodinger first indicated that life should remain in a low-entropy state or “an organism feeds with negative entropy”[1]. This means that entropy production in an organism is canceled by the outward entropy flow so that the system remains in a highly ordered state of low entropy. However, following our point of view, negative entropy (or negentropy) is only the first half of the story. The living organism is a chemical engine in which a series of chemical reactions take place one by one in an appropriate sequence. Accordingly, the energy transfer in an organism in the normal state is so efficient that the entropy production is minimized. Minimal entropy production in a healthy cell is the second half of the story [2]. We shall compare qualitatively and demonstrate that the entropy production rate (or “entropy production” for short) of a healthy cell is lower than that of a cancerous cell if no external energy input [3-5]. However, when the appropriate external energy is applied to tissues, the rate of entropy production of normal cells may exceed that of cancerous cells. As an example, we shall discuss the entropy production of cells under irradiation of ultrasound and alternative electromagnetic fields. We shall prove the B