Colon cancer – the third most common cancer and the second deadliest – is normally treated with a drug called Capecitabine (CAP), but it’s a shotgun treatment: the drug swarms not only tumors but also healthy tissue, leaving patients with side effects ranging from severe pain in hands and feet to dermatitis to nausea.
Researchers in Australia and India have found a way to zap the tumors and skirt the side effects by loading CAP into designer nanoparticles.
The particles are made of porous silica with an outer coating that fits key-in-lock fashion onto receptors on tumors’ surfaces.
Once attached, the CAP moves through the particles’ pores into tumor cells, inflaming them and disrupting their ability to replicate normally.
In rat tests, the treatment produced fewer and milder side effects because the drug dose bypassed most of the healthy tissue but was just as effective in shrinking and killing tumors.
TRENDPOST: The same approach can be applied broadly across other forms of cancer and, once approved by regulators, could subject a range of malignancies to a relatively straightforward cure.
