Diamonds help cure cancer?
2008-10-04 16:25
Chicago - A new drug patch material
studded with tiny specks of diamonds may one day allow cancer
patients to get chemotherapy just where they need it, US
researchers said on Thursday.
The flexible microfilm, which looks something like plastic
wrap, is embedded with tiny bits of diamonds that can release a
common chemotherapy drug slowly over time, limiting exposure to
the drug's toxic side effects.
"The thin device - a sort of blanket or patch - could be
used to treat a localized region where residual cancer cells
might remain after a tumour is removed," Dean Ho of Northwestern
University, whose research appears in the journal ACS Nano,
said in a statement.
The material is made of nanodiamonds, fragments of diamond
dust comprised of only a few clusters of carbon atoms. Clusters
of nanodiamonds have a high surface area that makes them ideal
for carrying drugs.
Ho's team sandwiched nanodiamonds embedded with the
chemotherapy drug doxorubicin between layers of thin films of a
polymer called parylene to form the patch material.
Then they tested it to see how well it released drugs over
time. They found the drug released slowly and evenly for a
month, with doxorubicin to spare.
Because of their small size, the researchers said
nanodiamonds are compatible with tissues in the body. Prior
studies in Ho's lab found they do not cause inflammation in
cells. And they can be produced in large quantities.
"The nanodiamonds are quite economical and have already
been mass-produced as lubrication components for automobiles
and for use in electronics," said Robert Lam, a graduate
student in Ho's lab who led the study.
The team hopes this diamond-studded technology can be used
to complement injected chemotherapy to reduce dosages and
decrease its side effects.