Nanotechnology in cancer detection and treatment

Cancer is a disease in which abnormal cells divide uncontrollably. These abnormal cells have the ability to inavde and destroy normal body tissues. Medically cancer is called by a fancy name called Malignant Neoplasm. The transformation of normal cell to tumor cell is a multi stage process,which occurs as a result of interaction between persons genetic factors and some external agents such as

1. Physical carcinogens - Ultraviolet and ionizing radiations
2. Chemical carcinogens - Asbestos, tobacco smoke, aflatoxins and arsenic
3. Biological carcinogens - Infections from bacteria, virus or parasites.
example: Hepatitis B and liver cancer
HIV and Kaposi sarcoma
HPV and cervical cancer
H.pylori and stomach cancer

Most common types of cancer among the men are lung, stomach, liver, colorectal, oesophagus and prostate cancer and among the women are breast, lung, stomach, colorectal and cervical cancer.

Cancer detection

Cancer can be detected at different stages in their development.The stages can be indicated by number as I , II , III or IV or by terms such as localized, regional and distant. Some cancers can be detected at early stage such as breast cancer by using Mammograms.Yearly mammograms are recommended for women age 40 and above, once in 3 years for women age 30-40 years. Similarly colon and rectal cancers can be detected by using Flexible sigmoidoscopy, colonoscopy, CT colonography, Fecal Occult Blood Test [FOBT], and stool DNA test. But most of the cancers were detected at later stage because the symptoms may not be specific suh as lung cancer and gastric cancer.Also most of the cancers were detected by Biopsy which was one of the painful procedure.

Treatment options

Chemotherapy,radiation and Surgery are major treatment choices for cancer. The traetment will prolong the life of the cancer patients. Both the methods have their own side effects. Radiation therapy may leads to fatigue, skin changes and mouth and throat problems, where as chemotherapy may leads to side effects such as alopecia or hair loss, fatigue, nausea vomiting and also some muscle and nerve problems.

Nanotechnology is the science of extremely tiny particles. It involves the study and use of materials on an unimaginable small scale. Our body is made up of millions of cells and these cells are nature's Nano machines.A nano is a measure of one-billionth of meter.

Generally the nano structures were studied with the help of AFS-Atomic Force Microscopes or scanning tunneling microscopes. Scanning tunneling microscopes use a weak electric current to probe the scanned material, where as atomic force microscopes scan surfaces with an incredibly fine tip. Most of the applications of Nantechnology in medicine is still under development such as

Qdots -That identifies the location of cancer cells
Nanopartcles- That delivers the anti-cancer medication directly to the cancer cells
Nanoshell-To destroy the cancer cells with minimal damage to the normal cells
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"Trojan horse" is a nanotechnology that may curb the need for deliberating chemotherapy.

Australian researcher, Himanshu Brahmbatt from Sydney based biotechnology company EnGenIC effictively used this effect in treating cancer in mice. In this method. The anti-cancer medications are targetted directly to the cancer cells without damaging the healthy tissue, a major problem in existing chemotherapy.

Brahmbatt loaded the cancer drugs in the form of nanoparticles directly on the cancer cells. The cells were loaded with medications and deployed in waves to combat cancer, he said. The first wave disabled the resistance mechanism inside the cancer cells and repeated waves will kill the cancer cells. Also he used very little anti-cancer medication compared to existing chemotherapy, so it will be cost effective with less side effects. This will be an out patient procedure .

"You can achieve the treatment in a very short period of time and you can go about your normal life and not have any toxic side effects"

Igor sorkolov, a professor of physics and director of Nano Bio Laboratory [NABLAB] and his team proposed a new method for detecting cancer cells using Nano technology.According to him
" The traditional techniques used in the cancer detection such as visual identification of malignant changes, cell growth analysis, specific-ligand receptor labeling or genetic test are either insufficiently accurate or require lengthy complicated analysis, which is impractical for clinical use".

The method using nanotechnology that he reported will be one of the alternative methods which will be more precise and simpler than the traditional methods.His new method of detection is based on the measurement of physical adhesion of silica beads to malignant cells and cancer cells. First the difference in the surface physical properties between cancer and normal cells where studied using AFS.

All the cells including the cancer cells were surrounded by brush layers.These brush layers on the surface of the cells are important for interacting with the environment.Normal cells and the cancer cells have different brush layers and so the interaction to the environment will be different.This principle is used in recent research to detect cancer with out biopsy and the cells were studied by using AFS.

1.The study revealed that there is a quantitative difference in the brush layer on the surface of the cells. Normal cells have brushes with one length, on the other hand cancer cells displayed long and short brushes with different densities.

2.The difference in the brush layer leads to differences in the adhesion of various particles to the cells.The group used flourescent silica beads Prof.Solokov demonstrated that adhesion depends on the duration of contact between the particles and the cell surface.So different number of cells adheres to normal versus malignant cells.

3.They used fluorescent silica beads to make the detection easier by measuring the total amount of fluorescent light coming from particular area and acheived by using high sensitivity spectrometer