(Study Finds) – Could beating skin cancer in the future be as simple as a shot in the arm? Perhaps, according to a team from Yale University. Scientists are developing a skin cancer treatment applied by injecting nanoparticles directly inside tumors. This method could potentially kill cancer cells via a two-pronged approach and hopefully help countless skin cancer patients avoid surgery.
“For a lot of patients, treating skin cancer is much more involved than it would be if there was a way to effectively treat them with a simple procedure like an injection,” says senior study author and Yale Medical School’s vice chair of dermatology Dr. Michael Girardi in a university release. “That’s always been a holy grail in dermatology — to find a simpler way to treat skin cancers such as basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma.”
The injections consist of polymer-based nanoparticles infused with a chemotherapy agent. According to the team at Yale, the bio-adhesive nature of the nanoparticles involved is integral to this method’s cancer-killing success. In simpler terms, the nanoparticles are able to latch onto cancer cells long enough to inflict some serious damage.
“When you inject our nanoparticles into a tumor, it turns out that they’re retained within that tumor very well,” explains study co-author Mark Saltzman, the Goizueta Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, and professor of physiology. READ MORE
