British scientists are developing ways to use nanoparticles as tiny magnets that can heat up and kill cancer cells without harming healthy cells around them.
The researchers have found that iron-oxide nanoparticles can be attached to cancer-seeking antibodies, or injected into cancer-seeking stem cells, which take them straight to the tumors they need to kill.
Heating the cells to just 5 or 6 degrees Celsius above body temperature, in a new device called a magnetic alternating current hyperthermia (MACH) machine, can kill the cancer cells.
The researchers said the MACH device was like a microwave, heating only targeted cells.
The tiny particles are designed to roam through the body’s blood vessels in search of tumour cells.
Once they have latched on to their targets, the magnets can be heated from outside the body using a magnetic field – wiping out the cancer cells without harming the surrounding tissue.
Nanoparticles
Although the technique is still at the earliest stages, British researchers believe it could revolutionise the treatment of a range of difficult to reach cancers.
The first clinical trials on lung cancer patients will start in three years, while trials for neck and head cancers are likely to follow.
Dr Mark Lythgoe, of the University College London Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging, said the new treatment ‘cooked’ cancer cells inside the body.
Two other methods were also showing promise, one using cancer-seeking antibodies to carry nanoparticles to head and neck tumors, and another using magnetic fields to steer the tiny magnets to specific parts of the body which need treatment.
“The idea is that we could use these three guided techniques to get the cells to go to the tumor,” said Lythgoe. “Then when you’ve got them there, you put the patient into the MACH system, it heats up the iron oxide particles like a microwave.”
Heat is known to kill cancer cells but scientists are seeking ways to target the heat more specifically so healthy cells are not destroyed.
Research presented last month by German scientists showed that heat-treated tumors responded better to chemotherapy, meaning the technique could allow chemotherapy doses to be reduced in the future, reducing toxic side effects.
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April 21st, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Scientists believe they may have made a “breakthrough” in using gene therapy to treat cancer tumours.
Researchers at Strathclyde University in Glasgow have identified a technique for delivering genes to hard-to-reach tumours without harming healthy tissue.
During lab tests the “seek-and-destroy” therapy resulted in 90% of skin cancer tumours disappearing altogether.
The team is now investigating the technique’s effectiveness at treating different forms of the disease.
At present, most gene therapies cannot be delivered to tumours without harming surrounding healthy tissue.
The Strathclyde-led team investigated ways of doing so with the use of the plasma protein transferrin, which carries iron through the blood.
April 24th, 2010 at 6:57 am
Viruses can be modified to seek out and destroy cancer cells, scientists said today. Laboratory tests at Leeds University have shown how proteins can be added to a virus to enable it to recognise unique markers on the surface of tumours.
Campaign and research groups believe the development could benefit patients and lead to treatments tailored to different diseases. They say the findings show a method of delivering gene therapy more efficiently and individually to the cancers they are intended to treat.
Now the researchers are hoping to move from the laboratory and begin human testing. Dr John Chester, who led the Cancer Research UK-funded study, published in Gene Therapy, said the modified viruses deliver genes which could make cancer cells more sensitive to drugs.
They could also introduce “suicide” genes to cancer cells or replace the missing and defective genes which caused the cancer to develop, with an approach known as gene therapy.
Chester said: “Gene therapies have been out of fashion over the last couple of years. This isn’t an indication that they don’t work, just that we haven’t found the best way to use them yet.
April 29th, 2010 at 12:00 am
Those diagnosed with lung cancer in England are much less likely to survive the disease than their Scandinavian counterparts, a study suggests.
A study published in Thorax finds that despite similar health spending, Swedes have almost double the survival rate after five years with the disease.
This was true regardless of the age and sex of the patient, and how long they were monitored for.
But researchers say it is hard to pin down the exact reasons for this.
The English patients studied were less likely to be treated with surgery and drugs than their contemporaries in Sweden and Norway.
But this could be because they delayed seeking medical help, or their doctors were not quick enough to spot the symptoms and that the disease was beyond treatment by the time a diagnosis was made.