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Injecting Liquid Metal Into Blood Vessels Could Help Kill Tumors
KentuckyFC (1144503) writes One of the most interesting emerging treatments for certain types of cancer aims to starve the tumor to death. The strategy involves destroying or blocking the blood vessels that supply a tumor with oxygen and nutrients. Without its lifeblood, the unwanted growth shrivels up and dies. This can be done by physically blocking the vessels with blood clots, gels, balloons, glue, nanoparticles and so on. However, these techniques have never been entirely successful because the blockages can be washed away by the blood flow and the materials do not always fill blood vessels entirely, allowing blood to flow round them. Now Chinese researchers say they've solved the problem by filling blood vessels with an indium-gallium alloy that is liquid at body temperature. They've tested the idea in the lab on mice and rabbits. Their experiments show that the alloy is relatively benign but really does fill the vessels, blocks the blood flow entirely and starves the surrounding tissue of oxygen and nutrients. The team has also identified some problems such as the possibility of blobs of metal being washed into the heart and lungs. Nevertheless, they say their approach is a promising injectable tumor treatment.
Those tumors could be terminated.
Thanks, I'll be here all week. Try the baklava!
Having blobs of liquid metal flowing to the heart seems like a show stopper to me. I'm intrigued by the old-school-mad-scientist aspect of this idea, but the potential risks seem a bit serious.
"Have you seen this boy?"
I'm a radiology resident who is at least moderately familiar with embolic agents.
We already have a liquid embolic agent that solidifies slowly called Onyx. It is only approved for arteriovenous malformations in the central nervous system, but it is used off label for other indications, including tumor embolization: http://www.ajnr.org/content/34... [American Journal of Neuroradiology]. The English on the actual liquid metal article is pretty rough and I soon grew tired of trying to decipher it, but from what I did manage to read I cannot see this doing anything better than Onyx already does.
With regards to embolization to the heart and pulmonary arteries, this happens occasionally with any embolic agent. The cardiovascular system, like the internet, is a series of tubes and the pulmonary capillaries are a fine network of blood vessels that routinely catch tiny blood clots without you even noticing it. It's big emboli that you need to worry about.
Probably better than having Mercury up your ass, and then getting AIDS
Wikipedia says:
While metallic gallium is not considered toxic, the data are inconclusive.
Pure indium in metal form is considered nontoxic by most sources.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Most of the time chemo doesn't work, in which case I could see this being used instead.
That myth hasn't held true for 30+ years.
When used against appropriate cancers and caught early enough (which doesn't mean "before you have any reason to suspect you have a problem" anymore), chemo has a very high success rate, on the order of 90% and up. Bladder and testicular cancer, most skin cancers - considered almost perfectly curable. Most leukemias, either curable or sustainable.
The question you pose applies more out of desperation than practicality. Very few people, when told they have an untreatable cancer, will decide to just sit down and die. No, they ask the doctor to try anything, however nasty, on the off chance it will work.
We don't complain about antibiotics as a complete failure, despite the fact that they don't treat viruses. The same applies to cancer treatments: use the right drug at the right time.