UMass researchers expand use of light to treat cancer
An international group of scientists led by Dr. Gang Han of UMass Medical School (UMMS) has combined a new type of nanoparticle with an FDA-approved photodynamic therapy to effectively kill deep-set cancer cells with minimal damage to surrounding tissue and fewer side effects than chemotherapy.
The new research was published online in the journal “ACS Nano” of the American Chemical Society, in which Han and colleagues describe a novel strategy that makes use of a new class of upconverting nanoparticles (UCNP) to activate a cancer-killing drug.
“This approach is an exciting new development for cancer treatment that is both effective and nontoxic,” Han said in a statement.
This new version of the treatment could expand the use of photodynamic therapies for deep-set cancer tumors, according to UMMS. The light used to activate drugs used to fight cancer in the therapy has a limited ability to penetrate tissue. Current photodynamic therapies are only used for skin cancer or lesions in very shallow tissue, said UMMS, but the ability to reach deeper set cancer cells with this new technique could extend the use of photodynamic therapies.
“This therapy has great promise as a noninvasive killer for malignant tumors that are beyond 1 cm in depth—breast cancer, lung cancer and colon cancer, for example—without the side-effects of chemotherapy,” Dr. Yong Zhang a leader in the development and application of upconversion nanoparticles used in these light therapies, who was not involved in the study, said in a statement.
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