There are many ways to attack a neoplasm, and it’s been found that combining therapies can sometimes potentiate each one to be more clinically effective. For example, delivering heat to cancer cells while administering chemotherapy can often boost the killing power of the chemo medication. One serious difficulty that makes combination therapy often impractical is that each one requires a drastically different delivery method.
To overcome this, researchers at Japan’s National Institute for Materials Science have developed a “smart” nanofiber mesh that can deliver heat and release chemo drugs in a controlled manner. The fiber mesh is seeded throughout with a polymer embedded with chemo drugs and magnetic nanoparticles that stay in the mesh and are not released into the body. A quickly alternating magnetic field applied to the mesh makes these nanoparticles vibrate rapidly and generate heat, raising the temperature of the implant. The heat in turn morphs the temperature-responsive polymer to set free the chemo, and the final result is combination therapy to directly attack a tumor. The device hasn’t left the lab so far, but there’s certainly lots of hope for this technology in improving tumor treatment.
Study in Advanced Functional Materials: A Smart Hyperthermia Nanofiber with Switchable Drug Release for Inducing Cancer Apoptosis…
National Institute for Materials Science: Smart Anticancer “Nanofiber Mesh”…
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