Doctors Will Start Using Nanotechnology to Treat Cancer
Chemotherapy is the most know and most successful cancer treatment currently. However, chemotherapy not only destroys cancer cells, it also attacks healthy cells. Chemo patients lose their appetite, and its toxins affect fast-growing cells such as hair and intestinal lining. Chemo therapy drugs spread everywhere in the body, and it can destroy some organs. The question was, could there be other way to deliver these drugs?
Mark E. Davis knew nanoparticles, though extremely small, were still too large to pass through normal blood vessel walls. Interesting enough, the blood vessels that feed directly to the cancer cells are not normal; they have holes and gaps in the walls that aren’t found in normal vessels. Nanoparticles are small enough to pass through the holes of these cancerous blood vessels.
Cyclodextrin is the name of the sugar polymer Mark created; and camptothecin , the toxic drug encapsulated in the nanoparticle.
The first phase of trials proved to be a success. At no time did the patient suffer from any side effects. After two months, lung cancer in a particular patient was completely arrested. After six months, MRI scans showed cancer cell death.
The second phase of trials is still taking place, and though no data has been collected thus far, it’s still very promising based on the results from phase I. If the second and third phase of trials proved relatively successful, it won’t be long until doctors start using nanotechnology to treat cancer.
I found this article particularly interested because even though nanotechnology is developing extremely quickly and it's a hot topic right now, researchers are actually starting to apply laboratory work. The fact that nanotechnology can help fight a disease that we have been trying to cure for ever is amazing to me, specially because this treatment doesn't even have any side effects and is so simply in theory. I think this just proves that nanotechnology will become, in a near future, the answer to multiple diseases.
SOURCE:
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-nano-technology-may-be-applied-to-medicine
Giuliana Salazar-Noratto
Mark E. Davis knew nanoparticles, though extremely small, were still too large to pass through normal blood vessel walls. Interesting enough, the blood vessels that feed directly to the cancer cells are not normal; they have holes and gaps in the walls that aren’t found in normal vessels. Nanoparticles are small enough to pass through the holes of these cancerous blood vessels.
Cyclodextrin is the name of the sugar polymer Mark created; and camptothecin , the toxic drug encapsulated in the nanoparticle.
The first phase of trials proved to be a success. At no time did the patient suffer from any side effects. After two months, lung cancer in a particular patient was completely arrested. After six months, MRI scans showed cancer cell death.
The second phase of trials is still taking place, and though no data has been collected thus far, it’s still very promising based on the results from phase I. If the second and third phase of trials proved relatively successful, it won’t be long until doctors start using nanotechnology to treat cancer.
I found this article particularly interested because even though nanotechnology is developing extremely quickly and it's a hot topic right now, researchers are actually starting to apply laboratory work. The fact that nanotechnology can help fight a disease that we have been trying to cure for ever is amazing to me, specially because this treatment doesn't even have any side effects and is so simply in theory. I think this just proves that nanotechnology will become, in a near future, the answer to multiple diseases.
SOURCE:
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-nano-technology-may-be-applied-to-medicine
Giuliana Salazar-Noratto
posted by Giuli at 12:07 PM
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