Novel Magnetic Fluids for Breast Cancer Therapy
Abstract
Magnetic particles with micron or sub-micron dimensions are now becoming highly attractive for many biomedical applications, such as targeted drug delivery, gene therapy, disease detection, biochemical sensing, genetic screening. Advances in these areas are largely due to the research progress in nano-technology and in magnetic fluid technology, in particular. The last one gave birth to the magnetic fluid hyperthermia (MFH) - an important tool for cancer treatment. Hyperthermia is a cancer therapy consisting of heating a tumor region to the elevated temperatures in the range of 42-45 deg C for an extended period of time (2-8 hours). This leads to thermal inactivation of cell regulatory and growth processes. Moreover, heat boosts the tumor response to other treatments such as radiation, chemotherapy or immunotherapy. Of particular importance is careful control of generated heat in the treated region and keeping it localized. Higher heating, to about 56 deg C can lead to a healthy tissue thermo-ablation. With accurate temperature control, hyperthermia has the advantage of having minimal side effects. Several heating techniques are utilized for this purpose, such as whole body hyperthermia, fever induced hyperthermia, radio-frequency (RF) hyperthermia, ultrasound technique, microwave hyperthermia, inductive needles (thermo-seeds), and magnetic fluid hyperthermia (MFH).
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA455294
Entities
People
- Konstanty Mazuruk
Organizations
- University of Alabama in Huntsville