With the continuous development of medical technology, new treatments that are one step closer to conquering cancer are being studied. Recently, domestic medical staff have developed a ‘thermal cancer treatment’ that divides cancer cells using heat generated from nanomaterials.
On the 5th, Seoul National University Hospital said, “The team of professors at Seoul National University Hospital (Neurosurgeon Seon-Ha Paik, Radiology Department Kim Young-Il, Nuclear Medicine Department Kang Kun-Wook, Ophthalmology Park Ki-Ho) and the University of South Carolina Electronics Department Professor Seong-Tae Bae’s team demonstrated ‘thermal cancer treatment effect using magnesium nanomaterials’ did,” he announced.
‘thermal cancer treatment’ is a treatment that destroys cancer cells with the heat generated from the nanoparticles by putting magnetic nanoparticles into the cancer cells and applying an external magnetic field. This treatment kills cancer cells in a short period of time, preventing the metastasis of cancer cells in advance, as well as treating only specific cancer cells, minimizing side effects such as DNA modification of normal cells.
The two research teams said, “Magnetic nanoparticles used in conventional thermal cancer treatment have a limitation in that they have a low heat dissipation effect. We used magnesium nanomaterials that generate heat explosively at low frequencies (less than 120KHz) that are harmless to the human body.”
The magnesium nanomaterial used in this treatment is the same iron oxide as the material approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but the heat efficiency is about 100 times higher, so the high heat approaching 50℃, the most suitable temperature for killing cancer cells using low frequency can pay
In addition, as a result of applying the substance to the brain tumors of experimental mice, the research team confirmed that the cancer cells disappeared after 2 days.
Professor Baek Seon-ha of Seoul National University’s Neurosurgery Department explained, “Current malignant brain tumor treatment has the disadvantage of developing resistance, but treatment using nanomaterials will replace existing treatments with next-generation treatments that do not develop resistance because they physically divide cancer cells.” did.