Cancer Therapy: Nanotechnology

When most people hear “cancer” their mind immediately associates it with the words incurable, or untreatable. However, this is in fact not true. There are many treatments that help decrease the progression of cancers, and sometimes even eliminate them. One of these new treatments involve an innovative type of technology known as nanotechnology. The typical treatments of cancer involve surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, or some combination of the two. These treatments typically have a risk of damaging other tissues in the body, or only eliminating parts of the cancer. This new technology hopes to eliminate that risk and provide a higher percentage of survival for the patient.

Nanotechnology makes it possible for chemotherapies to be targeted “directly and selectively to cancerous cells and neoplasms, guide in surgical resection of tumors, and enhance the therapeutic efficacy of radiation-based and other current treatment modalities” (National Cancer Institute, 2017). Nanotechnology involves the use of nanoparticles, which may seem small in size, but are in fact large enough to contain a few different molecular compounds. Their large surface is also a benefit in order to be used with “ligands, including small molecules, DNA or RNA strands, peptides, aptamers or antibodies (National Cancer Institute, 2017).

Nanotechnology is an effective mode of cancer therapy as it targets selective cancerous cells and distributes anticancer drugs to them. When this is done, the pharmacokinetics are actually increased, while some of the system toxicities of chemotherapy are decreased, benefiting the patient. The nanoparticles' sizes are actually extremely beneficial when implementing this type of therapy. Their small size allows for the selective delivery of anticancer drugs as this type of therapy heavily relies on “the passive targeting of tumors through the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect” (National Cancer Institute, 2017).

Immunotherapy is a term that most people may have heard when researching treatments for cancer, and it is now a type of treatment that nanotechnologies are advancing. In the past couple years, nanotechnologies have also been investigated to see their use in delivering immunotherapies. This means that nanoparticles have been utilized to deliver immunostimulatory or immunomodulatory molecules, and paired with types of chemo or radiotherapies as opposed to other types of immunotherapies.

All in all, the new nanotechnologies that are being investigated are a great leap forward in the steps for developing more effective cancer therapies. These new therapies that are being used in conjunction with nanotechnologies will both increase the success rate of treatments, but also decrease some of the more dangerous side effects to traditional cancer therapies (such as the ones emerging from chemotherapies). This is especially applied to pediatric cancer. One of the most common types of cancer treatment for children are chemotherapy drugs. These drugs have been proven to cause a decrease in immunity (immune deficiency) in the pediatric population. However, with the new research on nanotechnology that shows when used, there is a decreased side effect on normal tissues and a perceived decreased toxicity level of anticancer drugs, hopes for pediatric cancer patients may start to rise with this novel technology.

References:

Iranian Journal of Pediatric Hematology Oncology. (2015, December 10). Nanotechnology and Pediatric Cancer: Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment. PubMed Central (PMC). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles

National Cancer Institute. (2017, August 8). Nanotechnology Cancer Therapy and Treatment. https://www.cancer.gov/nano/cancer-nanotechnology/treatment

Zhang, Y., Li, M., Gao, X. et al. Nanotechnology in cancer diagnosis: progress, challenges and opportunities. J Hematol Oncol 12, 137 (2019). https://doi.org