Publications by authors named "M Broekgaarden"
Chemoradiation therapy is on the forefront of pancreatic cancer care, and there is a continued effort to improve its safety and efficacy. Liposomes are widely used to improve chemotherapy safety, and may accurately deliver high-Z element- radiocatalytic nanomaterials to cancer tissues. In this study, the interaction between X-rays and long-circulating nanoliposome formulations loaded with gold nanoclusters is explored in the context of oxaliplatin chemotherapy for desmoplastic pancreatic cancer.
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- - The cancer microenvironment poses a significant barrier to the effectiveness of anticancer treatments, prompting a need for strategies to enhance drug penetration in tumors.
- - Traditional methods like small molecule inhibitors have been ineffective due to increased toxicity and disease progression, while photodynamic therapy (PDT) shows promise by selectively generating reactive oxygen species that improve drug delivery without promoting metastasis.
- - This review explores how PDT alters the cancer microenvironment—by degrading extracellular matrix proteins and inhibiting cancer cell movement—while also identifying gaps in understanding key signaling pathways and the impact of PDT dosing on treatment outcomes.
Oxidative stress is a state that arises when the production of reactive transients overwhelms the cell's capacity to neutralize the oxidants and radicals. This state often coincides with the pathogenesis and perpetuation of numerous chronic diseases. On the other hand, medical interventions such as radiation therapy and photodynamic therapy generate radicals to selectively damage and kill diseased tissue.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe emerging use of 3D culture models of cancer has provided novel insights into the therapeutic mechanisms of photodynamic therapy on a mesoscopic scale. Especially microscale tumors grown on scaffolds of extracellular matrix can provide statistically robust data on the effects of photosensitizers and photodynamic therapy by leveraging high-throughput imaging-based assays. Although highly informative, the use of such 3D cultures can be impractical due to the high costs and inter-batch variability of the extracellular matrix scaffolds that are necessary to establish such cultures.
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- Cancer cells can change their metabolism to survive treatment, leading to resistance against therapies.
- A new method has been developed to track the metabolic changes in cancer tissues without labels, using the natural fluorescence of specific molecules (NAD(P)H and FAD).
- This technique works well with various 3D culture types and can help researchers understand how cancer cells adapt metabolically during treatments like photodynamic therapy.