As today is the World Cancer Day, I would like to draw your attention to what I believe will be the upcoming revolution in the fight against cancer: the nanotechnology.
Nanotech, as it is usually known, can be used to treat diseases like cancer by using nanoparticles which are 1000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair. These nano particles have the ability to work at a molecular level, targeting the cancer cells and sparing the healthy ones contrary to traditional methods such as chemotherapy. Nanotech is intended to bring improvement to diagnostic and drug administration.
First, it allows better detection of cancer in its early stages and in specific parts of the body that could be missed by the traditional diagnostic methods, such as PET, SPECT, CT and MRI. The nanoparticles used in this case are made of gold and contain an antigen used to attach the nanoparticle to the cancer cell that contains receptors for that antigen. The gold is chosen because in reaction with red light it heats emitting an acoustic wave that can be detected by the medical imaging device. Secondly, the gold nanoparticle could also contain drug molecules with the purpose of killing the cancer cell once attached to it, for example using chemotherapy drug molecules. This kind of treatment brings much more efficient use of the drug, at the same time that it spares the normal cells. Also, another possibility is to heat the gold particles by using radio waves to destroy the cancer cells (Kanzius method).
As you can see, the nanotechnology is a field with enormous potential that will surely change the way we diagnose and treat cancer in the upcoming years. Cancer has won many battles against humanity, but nanotechnology is for the moment one of our biggest hopes of winning the war.
Sources:
Very interesting video that explains how to use nanoparticles to target cancer cells:
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