Interventional Photothermal Therapy Enhanced Brachytherapy: A New Strategy to Fight Deep Pancreatic Cancer.

Abstract

Photothermal-radiotherapy (PT-RT) is an effective strategy for relieving hypoxia-related radiotherapy resistance and inducing tumor-specific cell apoptosis/necrosis. Nevertheless, limited tissue penetration of near-infrared (NIR) laser and the serious side effects of high-dose radiation severely hinder its applications for deep tumors. An interventional photothermal-brachytherapy (IPT-BT) technology is proposed here for the internal site-specific treatment of deep tumors. This technology utilizes a kind of biodegradable honeycomb-like gold nanoparticles (HGNs) acting as both internal photothermal agents and radiosensitizers. A high tumor inhibition rate of 96.6% is achieved in SW1990 orthotopic pancreatic tumor-bearing mice by HGNs-mediated IPT-BT synergistic therapy. Interestingly, this approach effectively causes double-stranded DNA damage and improves the oxygen supply and the penetration of nanoparticles inside the tumor. Therefore, it is believed that this strategy may open up a new avenue for PT-RT synergistic therapy of deep malignant tumors and has a significant impact on the future clinical translation.

• Authors: Fengrong Zhang, Xianlin Han, Yanyan Hu, Shunhao Wang, Shuang Liu, Xueting Pan, Hongyu Wang, Junjie Ma, Weiwei Wang, Shanshan Li, Qingyuan Wu, Heyun Shen, Xiaoling Yu, Qipeng Yuan, Huiyu Liu
• Journal: Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) (Adv Sci (Weinh)) Vol. 6 Issue 5 Pg. 1801507 (Mar 06 2019) ISSN: 2198-3844 [Print] Germany
• PMID: 30886794 (Publication Type: Journal Article)