Tumours often grow to a dangerous size, before we can even see them on scans. It is therefore a great medical challenge to discover new methods, capable of detecting the diseases earlier.
A team of American scientists have attempted to come up with a new method for monitoring cancer cells – and they have succeeded. The answer is glowing nanoparticles. Scientists at Rutgers University in USA have discovered that if glowing nanoparticles are injected into the bloodstream, we can see when cancer cells divide.
What are glowing nanoparticles
The nanoparticles are tiny electrical devices, designed to emit infrared light. When the particles move through the body, they attach to cancer cells along the way. By reading the light from the nanoparticles, we can see, specifically, where the cancer is in the body. The nanoparticles cannot only detect how far the cancer has progressed, but also where it is about to spread to. During the experiment, the scientists were able to follow the spread of cancer cells in real time, which hasn’t been possible before now.
“We have always dreamed of being able to track the development of cancer in real time, and now we can”, says Prabhas V. Moghe, lead author of the experiment, to the university’s online media Rutgers Today.
Can be used on people within five years
It must be said that the experiment, like other studies in their early stages, has so far only been performed on mice. However, according to the scientists at Rutgers University, the results are so promising that the new method could be available to people within five years. When we get there, the nanoparticles will make it easier to operate on cancer patients, because they will be able to see exactly which cell should be removed. The nanoparticles will also be able to detect tumours that are too small to be visible on the scans we use today.
Which treatments work – and which do not?
The nanoparticles can lead to better understanding of the development of cancer in individual patients, and can thereby make it possible to present them with a tailormade treatment. It will make it easier for the physicians to know, exactly which cause of treatment the patient needs. Nanoparticles are already being used in the actual treatment by transporting medicine – e.g. chemotherapy – into the cancer cells. They can also be used to test new methods of treating cancer – a more in depth view of the cancer cells development in real time could make it easier to see which cause of treatment is working, and which is not.
