Gold is Hottest Thing in Cancer Treatment

Nanoparticles help direct heat to weaken cancer cells

28 October 2010

To keep heat used against cancers from damaging surrounding, healthy tissue, microscopic particles of gold - nanoparticles - can be injected into the body to make sure the heat gets to the right place.

Scientists are putting a modern spin on a cancer treatment that goes back to antiquity. It's heat therapy, which is getting a new look with the help of microscopic particles of gold.

Cancer treatments usually involve powerful drugs or radiation. But heating up the tumor — hyperthermia — can also be part of the therapy.

"Hyperthermia is an old technology ... first recorded in papyrus by the Egyptians, I believe. It's the first known treatment of breast cancer," says Jeffrey Rosen of the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.

"The idea is that as you raise temperature, you induce a heat shock in cells, and that this makes them more susceptible to the damage caused by chemotherapy and radiation."

Rosen has just published new research on how some new materials can help harness the potential of hyperthermia for cancer treatment.

One problem in using heat against cancers is that it can damage surrounding, healthy tissue. Rosen says that microscopic particles of gold — nanoparticles — can be injected into the body to make sure the heat gets to the right place.