Preclinical Development of Magnetic Nanoparticles for Hyperthermia Treatment of Pancreatic Cancer.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a very challenging disease with a very poor prognosis. It is characterized by a dense desmoplastic stroma that hampers drug penetration and limits the effectiveness of conventional chemotherapy (CT). As an alternative, the combination of CT with hyperthermia (HT) has been proposed as an innovative treatment modality for PDAC.

Insight into the Internal Structure of High-Performance Multicore Magnetic Nanoparticles Used in Cancer Thermotherapy.

Multicore magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs), comprising iron oxide cores embedded in a sugar or starch matrix, are a class of nanomaterials with promising magnetic heating properties. Their internal structure, and particularly the strength of the internal core-core magnetic interactions, are believed to determine the functional properties, but there have been few detailed studies on this to date. We report here on an interlaboratory and multimodality transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and magnetic study of a high-performance MNP material (supplied by Resonant Circuits Limited, RCL) that is currently being used in a clinical study for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Improved tumour delivery of iron oxide nanoparticles for magnetic hyperthermia therapy of melanoma ultrasound guidance and In SPECT quantification.

Magnetic field hyperthermia relies on the intra-tumoural delivery of magnetic nanoparticles by interstitial injection, followed by their heating on exposure to a remotely-applied alternating magnetic field (AMF). This offers a potential sole or adjuvant route to treating drug-resistant tumours for which no alternatives are currently available. However, two challenges in nanoparticle delivery currently hinder the effective clinical translation of this technology: obtaining enough magnetic material within the tumour to enable sufficient heating; and doing this accurately to limit or avoid damage to surrounding healthy tissue.

Local Magnetic Hyperthermia and Systemic Gemcitabine/Paclitaxel Chemotherapy Triggers Neo-Angiogenesis in Orthotopic Pancreatic Tumors without Involvement of Auto/Paracrine Tumor Cell VEGF Signaling and Hypoxia.

There is a growing interest in exploring the therapeutically mediated modulation of tumor vascularization of pancreatic cancer, which is known for its poorly perfused tumor microenvironment limiting the delivery of therapeutic agents to the tumor site. Here, we assessed how magnetic hyperthermia in combination with chemotherapy selectively affects growth, the vascular compartment of tumors, and the presence of tumor cells expressing key regulators of angiogenesis. To that purpose, a orthotopic PANC-1 (fluorescent human pancreatic adenocarcinoma) mouse tumor model (Rj:Athym-Foxn1nu/nu) was used.

Image-Guided Magnetic Thermoseed Navigation and Tumor Ablation Using a Magnetic Resonance Imaging System.

Medical therapies achieve their control at expense to the patient in the form of a range of toxicities, which incur costs and diminish quality of life. Magnetic resonance navigation is an emergent technique that enables image-guided remote-control of magnetically labeled therapies and devices in the body, using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system. Minimally INvasive IMage-guided Ablation (MINIMA), a novel, minimally invasive, MRI-guided ablation technique, which has the potential to avoid traditional toxicities, is presented.