A new treatment approach from researchers at Lund University uses smart nanoparticles to target lung tumors, Science Daily reports.
Lung tumors are often difficult to remove using current surgical techniques due to their location in the lung or the fact that there are multiple tumors which are too small to observe. Tumors also develop natural barriers to prevent drugs and immune cells from reaching the tumor cells.
“Therefore, patients often receive high doses of chemotherapeutics which are circulated through the entire body and lead to major side effects in other organs. While a number of new experimental therapies have been developed for lung cancer and have shown promise in the lab, a major remaining challenge has been how to deliver the right drug specifically to these difficult to reach tumors,” explains Darcy Wagner, Associate Professor and Head of the research group.
In order to overcome this challenge, the researchers behind the new study: Deniz Bölükbas and Darcy Wagner, researchers of the Lung Bioengineering and regeneration group, and colleagues developed a novel surgical technique which introduces the nanoparticles only into the blood vessels of the lung. The blood vessels around and in tumors are different than those in normal organs. The researchers used this difference to their benefit to direct nanoparticles to the interior of large and dense solid lung tumors.
