WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Wednesday, July 21, 2010 – A group of researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (WFUBMC) is developing a way to treat cancer by using lasers to light up tiny nanoparticles and destroy tumors with the ensuing heat.
Today at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) in Philadelphia, they will describe the latest development for this technology: iron-containing Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs) -- threads of hollow carbon that are 10 thousand times thinner than a human hair.
In laboratory experiments, the team showed that by using an MRI scanner, they could image these particles in living tissue, watch as they approached a tumor, zap them with a laser, and destroy the tumor in the process.
If this sounds like science fiction, it is not. The work builds on an experimental technique for treating cancer called laser-induced thermal therapy (LITT), which uses energy from lasers to heat and destroy tumors. LITT works by virtue of the fact that certain nanoparticles like MWCNTs can absorb the energy of a laser and then convert it into heat. If the nanoparticles are zapped while within a tumor, they will boil off the energy as heat and kill the cancerous cells.
The problem with LITT, however, is that while a tumor may be clearly visible in a medical scan, the particles are not. They cannot be tracked once injected, which could put a patient in danger if the nanoparticles were zapped away from the tumor because the aberrant heating could destroy healthy tissue.
Now the team from Wake Forest Baptist has shown for the first time that it is possible to make the particles visible in the MRI scanner to allow imaging and heating at the same time. By loading the MWCNT particles with iron, they become visible in an MRI scanner. Using tissue containing mouse tumors, they showed that these iron-containing MWCNT particles could destroy the tumors when hit with a laser.
"To find the exact location of the nanoparticle in the human body is very important to the treatment," says Xuanfeng Ding, M.S., who is presenting the work today in Philadelphia. "It is really exciting to watch the tumor labeled with the nanotubes begin to shrink after the treatment."
The results are part of Ding's ongoing Ph.D. thesis work -- a multi-disciplinary project led by Suzy Torti, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry at Wake Forest Baptist, and David Carroll, Ph.D., director of the Wake Forest University Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials, that also includes the WFUBMC Departments of Physics, Radiation Oncology, Cancer Biology, and Biochemistry.
A previous study by the same group showed that laser-induced thermal therapy using a closely-related nanoparticle actually increased the long-term survival of mice with tumors. The next step in this project is to see if the iron-loaded nanoparticles can do the same thing.
If the work proves successful, it may one day help people with cancer, though the technology would have to prove safe and effective in clinical trials.
Dan Bourland, Ph.D., associate professor of radiation oncology and Ding's advisor, praises the high quality of Ding's work and says that the project is a strong example of today's "team science" that is needed for success in the biomedical fields.
Media Contact for Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center: Jessica Guenzel, jguenzel@wfubmc.edu, (336) 716-3487 or (336) 716-4587.
This release was originally crafted and distributed by Jason Socrates Bardi of the American Institute of Physics, jbardi@aip.org, (301) 209-3091 (office), (858) 775-4080 (cell).
EDITORS NOTE: The presentation "MR Relaxation Properties for Fe-Containing MWCNTs and Potential for Combined MR Imaging and Tumor Ablation Therapy" by X Ding et al. will be at 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, July 21 in room 204B of the Philadelphia Convention Center.
ABSTRACT: http://www.aapm.org/meetings/amos2/pdf/49-13471-21772-60.pdf
MORE MEETING INFORMATION
AAPM is the premier organization in medical physics, a broadly-based scientific and professional discipline encompassing physics principles and applications in medicine and biology. Its membership includes medical physicists who specialize in research that develops cutting-edge technologies and board-certified clinical medical physicists who apply these technologies in community hospitals, clinics, and academic medical centers.
The presentations at the AAPM meeting will cover topics ranging from new ways of imaging the human body to the latest clinical developments on treating cancer with high energy X-rays and electrons from accelerators, brachytherapy with radioactive sources, and protons. Many of the talks and posters are focused on patient safety -- tailoring therapy to the specific needs of people undergoing treatment, such as shaping emissions to conform to tumors, or finding ways to image children safely at lower radiation exposures while maintaining good image quality.
RELATED LINKS
- Main Meeting Web site: http://www.aapm.org/meetings/2010AM/
- Search Abstracts: http://www.aapm.org/meetings/2010AM/PRSearch.asp?mid=49
- Meeting program: http://www.aapm.org/meetings/2010AM/MeetingProgram.asp
- AAPM home page: http://www.aapm.org
PRESS REGISTRATION
Journalists are welcome to attend the conference free of charge. AAPM will grant complimentary registration to any full-time or freelance journalist working on assignment. The Press guidelines are posted at: http://www.aapm.org/meetings/2010AM/VirtualPressRoom/default.asp
Advanced registration form online: http://www.aapm.org/meetings/2010AM/VirtualPressRoom/documents/pressregform.pdf
Press registration on-site will take place at the AAPM Registration Desk, 200 Level Bridge just outside Hall A-B in the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (www.wfubmc.edu) is an academic health system comprised of Wake Forest University Health Sciences, which operates the university's School of Medicine, Wake Forest University Physicians and North Carolina Baptist Hospital. U.S. News & World Report ranks the School of Medicine among the nation's best medical and osteopathic schools: 33rd in primary care, 44th in research, 23rd for its physician assistant program, and 11th for its joint program with the UNC-Greensboro to train nurse anesthetists. Best Doctors in America includes 214 of the Wake Forest medical school faculty. The institution is in the top third in funding by the National Institutes of Health and fourth in the Southeast in revenues from its licensed intellectual property. The Medical Center has been ranked as one of "America's Best Hospitals" by U.S. News & World Report since 1993.