It is known that conventional treatment methods of cancer are accompanied by toxic side effects. This is particularly true of chemotherapy in which chemicals injected into the body are not confined to the tumors alone but attack healthy tissues and vital organs thereby impacting normal bodily functions.
Kattesh Katti from Missouri University (Credit for video and image: University of Missouri)
Scientists at the University of Missouri have devised a new treatment for prostate cancer involving gold nanoparticles and a compound found in tea leaves where doses thousand times smaller than that employed in chemotherapy are used.
Kattesh Katti, professor of radiology and physics in the School of Medicine and the College of Arts and Science along with fellow researcher at the MU Research Reactor, Cathy Cutler, found that a particular compound in tea was attracted to cancerous cells in the prostate. They used the compound as a vehicle to carry radioactive gold nanoparticles to the site of the tumor.
Current treatment methods are effective only against slow-growing prostate cancers. The size of the radioactive particles injected in chemotherapy is too small to treat aggressive versions of the disease which in most cases spreads to other areas of the body.
The team used gold nanoparticles that were of correct size to ensure that the particles remained at the site of the tumor. As opposed to hundreds of injections required in chemotherapy, the team needed just one or two injections.
Since the half-life of radioactive gold nanoparticles is only 2.7 days, the radioactivity is expected to decay within three weeks.
The highly effective nanoparticles are expected to reduce tumor volume significantly within four weeks of treatment.
The team conducted their experiments on mice. Before the trials are conducted on humans, the scientists will study the treatment in dogs suffering from prostate cancer as the disease in canines is very close in form to that in humans.