A“golden bullet” treatment for cancer that tracks down tumours before wiping them out with a blast of heat is to be tested on patients within weeks, it has emerged. The “seek and destroy” technique uses an injection of microscopic glass spheres, coated in gold, which seek out potentially deadly cancers in the body. Once enough spheres have flocked to the tumour, doctors “activate” them using a low energy beam of light. In tests, tumours have been totally destroyed. Unlike conventional cancer treatments, the golden bullet approach uses no toxic chemicals and no radiation, reducing the risk of unpleasant side effects.
When it was tried on nine mice with colon cancer, the tumours were destroyed. Professor Jennifer West, of Rice University, Texas, who helped develop the treatment said clinical trials on cancer patients are expected to begin in the US “within weeks”.
The first phase will find out whether the treatment successfully kills off tumours. “From the work we have done so far, we believe that this therapy will work on any softtissue tumours, such as the breast, prostate, brain, skin, head, neck and cervix,” she said. DAILY MAIL
No comments:
Post a Comment