Degree of survival
Nanoparticles and heating cured intestinal cancer in mice
A group of scientists from NUST MISIS presented the results of testing an innovative technology of oncotherapy based on hyperthermia – heating a tumor to a certain temperature due to nanoparticles injected into it. A drug based on cobalt ferrite nanoparticles cured 100% of mice with intestinal cancer from the experimental group. The results of the project are published in the international scientific journal Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology, and Medicine.
Magnetic hyperthermia is a new and developing method of cancer treatment, in which intense heating can cause denaturation of cellular proteins, which quickly destroys tumor cells. However, so that healthy tissues of the body do not die together with the patients, the method involves the selective introduction of an agent with magnetic properties into the tumor. Due to them, it provides localized and controlled heating in the presence of an electromagnetic field. The agent – metal oxide nanoparticles act in its role – contacts tumor cells and, under the influence of a kilohertz alternating electromagnetic field, heats up, destroying them.
However, the technology has not yet been systematized. Scientists are looking for materials, and most importantly, temperature conditions that will be most effective for this procedure. Materials scientists and biochemists of the Biomedical Nanomaterials laboratory of NUST MISIS have published encouraging results of in vitro and in vivo studies, which showed that for successful antitumor therapy, it is necessary to select the temperature regime specifically for each type of cancer.
In particular, the group managed to achieve the complete disappearance of malignant neoplasms in 100% of mice with colon cancer after heating the tumor at a temperature between 41-43 0 C. Scientists used cobalt ferrite nanoparticles in their work, which have high magnetic properties, which means they are able to provide heating of cells and tissues in a wide temperature range in response to the influence of an electromagnetic field. In addition, they are extremely stable under physiological conditions, do not have a toxic effect on the cells and tissues of the body, and they can also be easily and inexpensively obtained.
"Observations were conducted on groups of animals with two different tumor models – patients with low-aggressive colon cancer CT26 and aggressive metastatic breast cancer 4T1. Both groups received an injection of a suspension of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles into the tumor and further therapy using magnetic hyperthermia at three different temperature conditions," says Anastasia Garanina, one of the authors of the article, engineer of the laboratory "Biomedical Nanomaterials" of NUST MISIS, PhD.
Scientists conducted a comparative analysis of the effects of different temperatures on two non–aggressive and "evil", actively metastasizing models of malignant tumors and found that colon cancer cells are more sensitive to hyperthermia and die already when heated in the range of 41-43 ° C.
"Breast cancer, according to the results of a series of experiments, turned out to be more resistant to heat, and its cells died only at high–temperature hyperthermia > 47 ° C," adds Garanina. In the groups of animals treated at temperatures of 46-48 °C and 58-60 ° C, the survival rate was 25-40%. However, an important discovery was the fact that therapy with magnetic hyperthermia leads to a decrease in cases of metastasis in the body of animals compared with surgical removal of the tumor."
Currently, the team continues laboratory research to optimize the work of nanopreparations in the framework of preclinical studies.
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