Arkansas researchers unveil cancer treatment.(HEALTH CARE)

Scientists at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences haven't cured cancer, but they unveiled research last week they believe will make cancer treatment less intrusive, less expensive and much more effective.

Within the next decade, traditional forms of cancer treatment such as surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy could be replaced by a process developed in Little Rock that uses carbon nanotubes to detect, track and ultimately destroy cancer cells.

The research, published in the Journal of Biomedical Optics, was announced at UALR by lead researchers Dr. Alex Biris, chief scientist with UALR's Nanotechnology Center, and Dr. Vladimir Zharov, director of the laser and nanomedicine labs of the Winthrop Rockefeller Cancer Institute at UAMS.

Their method entails targeting cancer cells with nanoparticles, 25,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair, which attach themselves to the bad cells and reveal to doctors the precise location of the cancer. The nanoparticles attached to the cancerous cells are then heated by a laser and destroyed.

Raman spectroscopy is the technology by which scientists can monitor and detect, in real time, nanoparticles moving through the circulation and detect cancer cells "tagged" with the carbon nanotubes. Successful experiments have been conducted on laboratory rats. The end result has been simply a dead cell within the subject and nanoparticles that within hours disintegrate.

The ramifications are far-reaching, said Dr. Daniel Casciano, project adviser and former director of the Food & Drug Administration's National Center for Toxicological Research at Jefferson. He estimated this new treatment could be commonplace and used in place of traditional cancer therapy within the next decade.

"This represents a more exact, more precise and more cost-effective means of treating cancer," he said. "And there is a therapeutic benefit as well because we can target the cancer cells without killing or injuring normal cells."

The economic importance of the research ranges from the development of nanomedical spinoff companies focusing on diagnostic therapies and tools, the reduction of personalized health care costs and potential increase in success rates, and the ability to distinguish between different types of cancer.

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