Emerging Application of Magnetic Nanoparticles for Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer.

Cancer is a disease that has resulted in millions of deaths worldwide. The current conventional therapies utilized for the treatment of cancer have detrimental side effects. This led scientific researchers to explore new therapeutic avenues with an improved benefit to risk profile.

Investigating the Application of Liposomes as Drug Delivery Systems for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer.

Chemotherapy is the routine treatment for cancer despite the poor efficacy and associated off-target toxicity. Furthermore, therapeutic doses of chemotherapeutic agents are limited due to their lack of tissue specificity. Various developments in nanotechnology have been applied to medicine with the aim of enhancing the drug delivery of chemotherapeutic agents.

Biological dosimetry for breast cancer radiotherapy: a comparison of external beam and intraoperative radiotherapy.

Purpose: External beam radiotherapy (EBRT) is the gold standard adjuvant treatment after breast conserving surgery although a recent phase 3 trial has shown the non-inferiority of intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT). Radiation exposure of the heart and cardiac vessels causes an increase in morbidity and mortality following EBRT for breast cancer. We have used γ-H2AX foci formation in peripheral blood lymphocytes as a surrogate marker of dose delivered to the heart and great vessels and have assessed the feasibility of using this technique for biological dosimetry.

Stem cell tracking using iron oxide nanoparticles.

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) are an exciting advancement in the field of nanotechnology. They expand the possibilities of noninvasive analysis and have many useful properties, making them potential candidates for numerous novel applications. Notably, they have been shown that they can be tracked by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and are capable of conjugation with various cell types, including stem cells.

A concise review of carbon nanotube's toxicology.

Carbon nanotubes can be either single-walled or multi-walled, each of which is known to have a different electron arrangement and as a result have different properties. However, the shared unique properties of both types of carbon nanotubes (CNT) allow for their potential use in various biomedical devices and therapies. Some of the most common properties of these materials include the ability to absorb near-infra-red light and generate heat, the ability to deliver drugs in a cellular environment, their light weight, and chemical stability.

Cancer antibody enhanced real time imaging cell probes--a novel theranostic tool using polymer linked carbon nanotubes and quantum dots.

Background: Cancer is a potentially fatal diagnosis, but due to modern medicine there is a potential cure in many of these cases. The rate of treatment success depends on early disease detection and timely, effective delivery of tumour specific treatment. There are many ongoing researches aimed to improve diagnostics or treatment, but the option to use both modalities concomitantly is deficient.

Conjugation of quantum dots on carbon nanotubes for medical diagnosis and treatment.

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide and early detection provides the best possible prognosis for cancer patients. Nanotechnology is the branch of engineering that deals with the manipulation of individual atoms and molecules. This area of science has the potential to help identify cancerous cells and to destroy them by various methods such as drug delivery or thermal treatment of cancer.

Application of OctaAmmonium-POSS functionalized single walled carbon nanotubes for thermal treatment of cancer.

Introduction: Single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have distinctive physical and chemical properties. Additionally, innovative properties can be established to match the clinical need by attachment of functional groups to the SWCNT. In this experiment SWCNT was functionalized with OctaAmmonium-POSS.

Synergistic photothermal ablative effects of functionalizing carbon nanotubes with a POSS-PCU nanocomposite polymer.

Background: The application of nanotechnology in biology and medicine represents a significant paradigm shift in the approach to the treatment of cancer. Evidence suggests that when exposed to near-infrared radiation (NIR), carbon nanotubes (CNTs) dissipate a substantial amount of heat energy. We have developed a novel nanocomposite polymer, polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane poly (carbonate-urea) urethane (POSS-PCU).

Functionalization of single-walled carbon nanotubes and their binding to cancer cells.

Background: Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have novel properties including their nanoscale size and ease of cellular uptake. This makes them useful for drug delivery, and their photo-thermal effects make them potentially useful in a wide range of applications, particularly the treatment of solid tumors. The poor solubility of SWCNTs has, however, been an issue that may potentially limit the utility of SWCNTs for cancer treatment.

A new era of cancer treatment: carbon nanotubes as drug delivery tools.

Cancer is a generic term that encompasses a group of diseases characterized by an uncontrolled proliferation of cells. There are over 200 different types of cancer, each of which gains its nomenclature according to the type of tissue the cell originates in. Many patients who succumb to cancer do not die as a result of the primary tumor, but because of the systemic effects of metastases on other regions away from the original site.