Slashdot Mirror
Magnetic Nanoparticles Fry Tumors
sciencehabit writes "In a new study, a team found that injecting mice with tiny magnets and cranking up the heat eliminated tumors from the animals' bodies with no apparent side effects. The nanoparticles heat up when a magnetic field is applied, and because they are only injected into tumors, only cancerous cells get fried. Researchers hope the technique, known as magnetic hyperthermia, could be used in cancer patients, obviating the need for chemotherapy and radiation."
"In a new study, a team found that injecting mice with tiny magnets and cranking up the heat created a new breed of super mice that banded together to fight super villain mutants
-- Flame me and I will happily flame you back. Bring it!
The problem is targeting only the tumour with the pill contents. If we had the ability to deliver oral drugs -only- to a tumour, then we could just use targeted chemo treatments and everything would be fine. Unfortunately, it's not that simple, so we need alternatives.
Part of the problem with turmours is that cutting anything out can spread the tumour by leaving mobile particles and injecting drugs directly allows them to spread to other (life-essential) organs.
Because these magnetic particles are less mobile than drugs, there is a good chance they'll tend to stay put and only damage the tumour and local tissue, rather than harming the organism as a whole.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
To my way of thinking, if the tumor is bad enough that it can swallow a pill, you may as well just give up.
The fact that this approach would require initial radio-imaging (CT/MRI/PET) doesn't take away from its value. Most cancer patients have to have several rounds of CT/MRI/PET scans anyway. It's required to do the initial diagnosis/prognosis/staging/etc. So treating cancer in many cases is already about making this trade off. Radio-therapy (radiation) is a great example. You can kill off any remaining cancer cells, but you do so knowing there is a much greater probability for certain cancers down the road (particularly those cancers related to the thyroid).
There are a few problems with this: 1-you need to know where the cancer is (so why not remove it?) so it can't be used on spreading multi organ cancers 2-you need to stick a needle into it (this isn't safe for some parts of the body) 3-it won't always get all the cancer, just the parts you can reach so this will probably leave cancerous cells in the body afterwards that will settle into some other organ to grow.
That's not a big thing. We've had ways to do this for decades. More than 20 years ago I did work in Photodynamic Therapy (injecting dyes into tumors. When you shine a light on the dyes, they produce oxygen radicals which kill the cells). We have lots and lots of ways to kill a specific tumor. This is just one more of many wrenches in our toolbox.
The hard part is designing a therapy which destroys only tumor cells, while leaving normal cells alone. Preserving needed tissue in critical spots (the brain, etc), while allowing it to hunt down individual rogue cells which may have metastasized and be trying to start a new tumor elsewhere in the body.
That's the the are where we need to focus.
My father had a similar procedure to wipe out his prostate cancer. Metal beads injected into tumor, three low-power radio beams focused on the target, beams combine very focally, beads heat, tumor burns away. Macrophages clean up the mess. Dad totally cancer-free for a decade now and has none of the side effects of surgery. thanks University of Virginia!
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
Thing the first: In TFA, they tested this with brain cancer tumors transplanted onto mice, and the result was a 100% cure. Full remission.
Second thing: If this takes billions of cancer cells and reduces that number to a few hundred, then it's a treatment and not a cure. But still would be massively useful.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.