Cancerous Cells Credit: Pixabay
Cancer refers to a group of diseases that is caused due to uncontrolled division of abnormal cells leading to formation of a tumor (benign) or in the case of malignant tumors, gets the ability to spread to other parts of the body and create havoc.
The standard line of treatment till now involves chemotherapy that targets all the cells in the body and radiotherapy. Certain chemotherapeutics try to keep the cancer cells acidic and trigger cell-induced suicide. It is due to the generic action of the drugs that often cancer patients lose their hair and weight and become sickly. However, a newly patented method by Assoc. Prof. Matthew Gdovin from the UTSA Department of Biology claims to be able to kill cancer cells in as less as 2 hours and be more precise, targeting just the tumour!
Describing his new study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, A/P Gdovin suggests injecting a chemical compound, nitrobenzaldehyde, into the tumor and allowing it to diffuse into the tissue. He then aims a beam of light at the tissue, causing the cells to become very acidic inside and, essentially, commit suicide. Within two hours, Gdovin estimates up to 95 percent of the targeted cancer cells are dead.
He’s also started to develop a nanoparticle that can be injected into the body to target metastasized cancer cells. The nanoparticle is activated with a wavelength of light that it can pass harmlessly through skin, flesh and bone and still activate the cancer-killing nanoparticle.
In the past two years, he’s developed his photodynamic cancer therapy to the point where it’s non-invasive. It now requires just an injection of the nitrobenzaldehyde fluid followed by a flash of an ultraviolet light to cause the cancer-killing reaction. Gdovin has now begun to test the method on drug-resistant cancer cells to make his therapy as strong as possible.
“Even though there are many different types of cancers, the one thing they have in common is their susceptibility to this induced cell suicide,” he said.
Gdovin tested his method against triple negative breast cancer, one of the most aggressive types of cancer and one of the hardest to treat. The prognosis for triple negative breast cancer is usually very poor. After one treatment in the laboratory, he was able to stop the tumor from growing and double chances of survival in mice.
“All forms of cancer attempt to make cells acidic on the outside as a way to attract the attention of a blood vessel, which attempts to get rid of the acid,” he said. “Instead, the cancer latches onto the blood vessel and uses it to make the tumor larger and larger.”
Gdovin hopes that his non-invasive method will help cancer patients with tumors in areas that have proven problematic for surgeons, such as the brain stem, aorta or spine.
It could also help people who have received the maximum amount of radiation treatment and can no longer cope with the scarring and pain that goes along with it, or children who are at risk of developing mutations from radiation as they grow older.
“There are so many types of cancer for which the prognosis is very poor,” he said. “We’re thinking outside the box and finding a way to do what for many people is simply impossible.”
The researchers are working on perfecting the nanoparticle drug delivery methods with enhanced selectivity. Ultimately, clinical trials and toxicity studies need to be done before it can become another standard line of treatment.
Source: UTSA
Categories: Americas, Cancer, Healthcare, Nanotechnology, Patient safety, Pharmacology, Research, USA
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