Tiny cancer tracers could boost survival rates

Source: www.bignewsnetwork.com/ Author: PanArmenian.Net staff Nanoparticles that can detect complex cancer cells and potentially improve five-year survival rates are headed for human trials. South Australian company Ferronova has developed the nanoparticles that are designed to identify early stage tumor and related cancer cells, Medical Xpress says. Ferronova Chief Executive Stewart Bartlett said the tiny cancer tracers were expected to be trialled on oral cancer patients at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in April 2020, pending key approvals. Bartlett said once Ferronova's polymer-coated iron oxide nanoparticles were injected into patients they would show up on an MRI within about 15 minutes. 'The way they work in cancer is they're designed to be detected around a solid tumor' he said. 'They'll actually be picked up by your lymphatic system as a foreign body and follow the same pathway as any cancer spread from a primary tumor would follow. 'If you can actually know where those particles are going you can also determine where the cancer would have gone.' Ferronova was spun out of a nanoparticles research collaboration between the University of South Australia and New Zealand's Victoria University, with backing from IP investors Powerhouse Ventures and UniSA Ventures. Bartlett said preclinical trials at the Mawson Lakes lab had given the company confidence to use the particles on humans. He said the treatment was expected to be 90 percent accurate. 'We've added a molecule to the particles so they go to the first lymph node and they are retained in the first lymph node, [...]

2019-11-03T10:29:59-07:00November, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

Seed planted in cancer research

Source: www.ivanhoe.com A cancer diagnoses usually means radiation therapy that will not only affect the tumor, but healthy cells as well. New approaches to cancer treatment have been tested and, according to data, one approach is working. The new procedure for treating solid tumors with radiation was highly effective and minimally toxic to healthy tissue in a mouse model of cancer. Brachytherapy is a technique for treating solid tumors, including prostate cancer, which involves the surgical implantation of radioactive seeds within a patient’s tumor. The seeds expose the tumor cells to high level of radiation while minimizing the negative side effects. However, brachytherapy has its limitations, said Wenge Liu, M.D., Ph.D., and associate research professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University in Durham, NC. “The most prominent factor is the need for survival implantation and removal of the seeds.” So the doctor and his team set out to eliminate the need for surgery. They did this by generating an injectable substance called a polymer that was attached to a source of radioactivity and spontaneously assembled into a radioactive seed after being injected into the tumor. “We believe that this approach provides a useful alternative to existing brachytherapy, which requires a complicated surgical procedure to implant the radioactive seeds,” Liu said. “Moreover, these injectable seeds degrade after the radiation is exhausted so they do not need to be surgically removed.” The tumors were eradicated by a single injection in 67 percent of the mice that received the treatment after being transplanted [...]

2012-11-20T19:16:41-07:00November, 2012|Oral Cancer News|
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