cancer is the second leading cause of death globally. in 2018, there were 18.1 million new cases and 9.5 million cancer-related deaths worldwide . by 2040, the number of new cancer cases per year is expected to rise to 29.5 million and the number of cancer-related deaths to 16.4 million.
approximately 50 per cent of all cancer patients can benefit from radiotherapy in the management of their disease. about half of those patients are diagnosed early enough that their cancer may be curable . for many cancers including breast, prostate, cervix, head and neck, lung and brain cancers, curative treatment includes radiation therapy. however, because radiotherapy destroys healthy cells as well as tumour cells, doses are limited.
radiotherapy , also called radiation therapy, is used alone to treat cancer or with other treatment options such as chemotherapy and surgery. it may also be used to shrink the tumour before surgery. in radiotherapy, tumour cells — which divide much faster than other surrounding healthy cells — are destroyed by damaging their dna.
one way to accomplish this is by making tumour cells more sensitive to radiation, so those cells are more easily damaged by radiation therapy. using gold nanoparticles as radiosensitizers has shown promising results. these gold nanoparticles can be introduced intravenously to accumulate in the tumour by exploiting the faulty walls of the tumour’s blood vessels, which tend to be leaky because of fast growth .
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understanding the complex biological system present in and around the tumour is essential for optimizing the use of the radiosensitizing gnps, as outlined by a consortium of labs , including our own nanoscience and technology development laboratory at university of victoria.
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this study showcases that using gold nanoparticles as a radiosensitizer allows more damage to be propagated to the cafs, an element that has shown to be largely influential to the progression of cancer . we believe that this work will be a building block towards a more effective treatment regime in the near future. building a model that can accurately represent the different interactions taking place inside the tumour’s microenvironment is essential to improving treatment results for patients.
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