Nano conflict.(University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences )(Brief article)

Last week's unveiling of collaborative research by scientists at UALR and UAMS representing a potential breakthrough in cancer research may not be quite so groundbreaking.

That's the assessment of a former Arkansas firm that claims it has provided the same procedure for more than eight years.

Lase Med Inc., founded by a former Arkansas husband-wife medical team, provides carbon-nanotube therapy to mostly breast-cancer patients out of an office in the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow.

Nanotube therapy is what UALR and UAMS officials presented last week as the culmination of years of research in an internationally U-streamed press conference.

The outpatient treatment entails injecting carbon nanotubes, 25,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair, into the bloodstreams of cancer patients.

The nanotubes emit a low-level wavelength that can penetrate human tissue and be tracked in real time by doctors. The nanotubes track down and identify cancerous cells while doctors look on, tracking their movement.

Once "tagged" by the nanotubes, the bad cells are targeted, heated by lasers and destroyed, with only temporary mild discomfort to the patient. The procedure is hailed as the likely replacement to traditional, invasive means of cancer treatment.

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