Blue Jeans + Gold = Cure for Cancer?

[rebeccafrog]

Well, not blue jeans as such, but the dye used in them. Phthalocyanine is also used in the ink for ballpoint pens, and can destroy cells when activated with red light. This much has been known for about fifteen years, but there hasn't been a good delivery system till now.
UK researchers are employing tiny gold "nanoparticles", 1/5000th the

Comments

[kastinkerbell]

Inneresting. Although it does raise a good point that the right light can't get through much skin, so the next step is activating them in deeper tumors. Awesome news, though, for a whole family of cancers that can use this just as soon as the FDA approves.

[rebeccafrog]

Actually, deeper tissue is relatively easy, and mentioned in the article:
He adds: "Red light can only travel through 5-6mm tissue, but activating the nanoparticles in tumours inside the body, such as in the gut, could be done by using a fibre optic cable to shine the laser on the cancer target."

Emphasis added. If they can put tiny cameras inside of people to aid in surgery, they can do the same with a red light source. Or if what you mean by deeper tumors is tumors that are thick enough that the red light wouldn't be able to penetrate them on the first go, I would assume that it could be done in multiple sessions.

[kastinkerbell]

I did see that in the article. I'm no medical person, but it seems to me that you can't get cameras everywhere and the smaller the instrument, the more you have to move it around and shine it on things. Each little nano particle has to be activated with the light. This isn't a problem if you can flood the light on an area (like the cervix or areas just below the skin). If you have a small instrument, you have to figure out how to shine that light on the entire affected area. Think of it this way: if you need to look for something in the dark, you can look a lot faster with a lantern than you can an LED keychain light.

What about cancer cells in the lung or in the bone..or in deep tissue (like the breast)? You don't want to just jam a camera in there! Certainly brain tumors can't be treated this way.

I'm just thinking the next innovation will be to deliver the activating light to these areas somehow.

[rebeccafrog]

Ah. That makes sense. I know next to nothing about cancer surgery, but it makes sense that at least for some of the areas, it would be possible to cut into the flesh above the tumor enough to expose it to the light, even if it wouldn't be safe to operate to remove the tumor. I am, however, more than willing to admit of the possibility that my ignorance is oversimplifying the matter.

[anonymous]

Well, what the light would be doing is adding energy to excite the particles. We already have radiation guns and class IV lasers to fry brain tumors. It should be possible to turn the wavelength down or otherwise adapt that tech. Also, we're already using directed ultrasound to liquify tumors and fat