"'Surgery and Chemotherapy-Free' Skin Cancer and Breast Cancer Treatment Method Rapidly Advances to Clinical Application"
KBSI Research Team Develops Optimal Photothermal Cancer Therapy Model
[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] A Korean research team has developed a technology that enables the treatment of breast cancer and skin cancer through photothermal cancer therapy using nanoparticles, without surgery or chemotherapy. Notably, they identified the optimal photothermal treatment conditions in an actual clinical environment rather than just at the research level, making it immediately applicable in clinical settings and significant for its potential application in developing photothermal therapy models for various cancers.
The Korea Basic Science Institute (KBSI) announced on the 14th that the research team led by Drs. Nam Ki-hwan, Bae Ji-yong, and Jang Ki-soo quantitatively analyzed the photothermal properties of gold nanoparticles within human biological tissues and developed a photothermal cancer treatment model that can precisely predict the degree of thermal damage to normal and cancerous tissues based on this analysis.
Photothermal cancer therapy using nanoparticles utilizes the phenomenon where light energy absorbed by nanoparticles, irradiated with light of a specific wavelength, is converted into thermal energy due to surface plasmon resonance. This generated heat is controlled to selectively destroy cancer cells located in localized areas, exploiting the characteristic that cancer cells are more sensitive to heat than normal cells.
Unlike conventional surgical, chemical, or radiation therapies, this method can selectively destroy cancer tissues without damaging normal tissues, making it a promising next-generation cancer treatment technology. Consequently, research on developing various functional nanoparticles and treatment strategies to maximize the effectiveness of photothermal cancer therapy and prevent cancer recurrence is actively underway worldwide.
The challenge is to selectively destroy only cancer tissues without damaging normal tissues and to completely eradicate cancer cells to prevent recurrence or metastasis to other tissues after treatment. To achieve this, optimal treatment conditions that can completely destroy only cancer tissues must be identified. Various variable factors must be comprehensively considered, including laser power and irradiation time, the properties and composition of surrounding biological tissues through which the laser propagates, photothermal properties depending on the geometric shape or composition of nanoparticles, the quantity of nanoparticles ultimately reaching the cancer lesion, the location and size of the cancer tissue, and the type of cancer cells.
The research team introduced 3D bioprinting technology to conduct various experiments in environments similar to living organisms, creating artificial biological tissue using living human breast cancer cells as biological materials. Additionally, by integrating computational biophysics analysis technology that considers the optical, thermal, and biophysical properties of various biological tissues, they accurately simulated the complex human biological environment.
By inputting all variables directly affecting photothermal temperature, they quantitatively and in real-time analyzed the heat transfer process of photothermal temperature within biological tissues and the degree of thermal damage to normal and cancer tissues. Ultimately, they were able to develop a cancer treatment model that identifies the optimal photothermal cancer treatment conditions applicable in clinical settings.
The results of this study were recently published in the international journal of materials science and biomedical engineering, Advanced Healthcare Materials.
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Dr. Nam Ki-hwan of KBSI stated, “The photothermal cancer treatment model developed this time has made photothermal cancer therapy, which was previously discussed only at the level of potential use, applicable in actual clinical practice,” adding, “This is the result of successfully integrating the recently spotlighted 3D bioprinting technology and computational biophysics analysis technology to develop a quantitative analysis method for the photothermal properties of nanoparticles within living organisms.”
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