Post by Lasher on Apr 15, 2008 14:22:50 GMT -5
I heard about this new experimental treatment for cancer. It has not had any clinical trials on humans yet, but they are working towards that.
Instead of the traditional treatment of chemotherapy and radiation, which causes all sorts of massive collateral damage, especially over long periods… this is a non-invasive method that utilizes radio waves.
My understanding of it is that radio waves are harmless to living tissue, but have the capacity to heat certain metals. So what is done is first they inject the tumor with nanoparticles of either carbon or gold I think it was, and then when the radio waves pass through the body, those particles within the tumor heat up and kill the cancer cells without affecting the surrounding tissue.
The problem is, or the hope is, to find a way to target and bind the nanoparticles to cancer cells only. That way, it would be possible to treat both solid tumors and metastasized cancers. The theory is that the nanoparticles would be carried through the bloodstream by a targeting molecule, that would bind only to the cancer cells… ignoring the healthy ones.
I'm not sure whether the news program will replay but here is a wiki on it. It’s not the first time that I’ve heard someone saying they have found a cure for cancer, but it is the first time I’ve ever more or less understood one. You get the feeling that it is gonna be something like this, something simple, something that doesn’t devastate you to endure.
Instead of the traditional treatment of chemotherapy and radiation, which causes all sorts of massive collateral damage, especially over long periods… this is a non-invasive method that utilizes radio waves.
My understanding of it is that radio waves are harmless to living tissue, but have the capacity to heat certain metals. So what is done is first they inject the tumor with nanoparticles of either carbon or gold I think it was, and then when the radio waves pass through the body, those particles within the tumor heat up and kill the cancer cells without affecting the surrounding tissue.
The problem is, or the hope is, to find a way to target and bind the nanoparticles to cancer cells only. That way, it would be possible to treat both solid tumors and metastasized cancers. The theory is that the nanoparticles would be carried through the bloodstream by a targeting molecule, that would bind only to the cancer cells… ignoring the healthy ones.
I'm not sure whether the news program will replay but here is a wiki on it. It’s not the first time that I’ve heard someone saying they have found a cure for cancer, but it is the first time I’ve ever more or less understood one. You get the feeling that it is gonna be something like this, something simple, something that doesn’t devastate you to endure.
