The Gold Standard in Cancer Treatment
Scientists are working on a way to use nanoparticles to make chemotherapy more effective and less harmful.
Chemotherapy has a solid track record at treating many forms of cancer, but it's not without its drawbacks. Treatments that attack tumors also attack healthy cells, and as little as one percent of medication actually reaches its target.
Now a new technique allows the nanoparticles that deliver medication to better determine their location, bringing medication directly to tumor cells and significantly increasing accuracy. It uses a gold coating to make the nanoparticles imitate the notification proteins that signal clotting agents to repair a cut. The gold coating will draw drug-delivery particles to tumors, sparing healthy tissue.
Researchers say that in addition to greater accuracy, the gold allows for greater speed, meaning a chemotherapy session can take a few hours rather than a whole day.