Treating Melanoma Metastases with a Novel Photodynamic Approach
Abstract
Melanoma has a high rate to metastasize to the lung and the metastases are often refractory to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. In pre-clinical studies, photodynamic therapy (PDT) has shown promise as an effective method to kill melanoma cells. However, PDT is limited by the shallow tissue penetration of light. In this project, we aim to develop a novel methodology called X-ray induced PDT or X-PDT, to treat cancer cells speared to the lung. Our strategy is to use X-ray, which affords great tissue penetration, to trigger a PDT process. This is achieved using an integrated nanosystem called nanosensitizer. Upon X-ray irradiation, the scintillator core converts X-ray photons to visible light photons. The latter in turn activates the photosensitizer, producing cytotoxic singlet oxygen (1O2) and causing cell death. In the past two years, we have successfully made MC540-SrAl2O4:Eu@SiO2 and NC-LiGa5O8:Cr@SiO2 based nanosensitizers and confirmed their great efficacy to kill cancer cells in vitro. We showed that X-PDT can be activated from external X-ray irradiation to kill cancer cells in the lung. We showed that the nanosensitizers are low toxic and can be efficiently excreted from the host. We have also established the melanoma lung metastasis model.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2017
- Accession Number
- AD1043538
Entities
People
- Jin Xie
Organizations
- University of Georgia