- MONDAY, Aug. 18 (HealthDay News) — Nanotechnology may offer doctors a
noninvasive way to detect early stages of cancer and also help monitor
treatment, a new report says.

Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine recently
demonstrated the new approach using “smart” targeted carbon nanotubes to
zero in on cancer cells in living mice, followed by laser scans of the
animals in which the nanotubes absorbed the laser energy and released
ultrasound waves to highlight the locations of the tumor cells.

“This imaging modality allows us to see things we've never been able to
see before,” study author Adam de la Zerda, a doctoral student in Stanford
electrical engineering, said in a news release issued by the
university.

The findings were expected to be published online Aug. 17 in Nature
Nanotechnology.

The technology takes advantage of the “photoacoustic effect,” a
physical phenomenon in which light hits an object and is converted into
sound. Shining light on an object heats it up, de la Zerda said.

“Think of a black car parked in the sun,” he said. The car warms up,
and the metal expands. Later, the cooling, shrinking metal makes little
“tink” sounds.

“We shine light on a nanotube and listen to the ultrasound waves coming
out of it,” de la Zerda said.

The technique is faster and costs less than an MRI scan and requires no
ionizing radiation like a PET-CT scan, the researchers said. Its ability
to look 2 inches deep into the body would make it helpful for looking at
tissues in the breast or prostate gland.

The method is sensitive enough to detect minute, early tumors that
normally can't be seen, the researchers said. Also, the scanners could
also be adapted to endoscopes, enabling views of internal organs.

Coatings on the nanotubes could also be altered so doctors could
receive diagnostic information about a tumor, de la Zerda said. For
instance, molecules put on nanotubes could tell a doctor which anti-cancer
drugs would work on a breast tumor.

“We will be able to ask a tumor: Are you responding to chemotherapy or
not?” de la Zerda said. “This should give us early information long before
the tumor shrinks or grows.”

A companion study in mice, published in Nature Nanotechnology in
April, found the carbon nanotubes appear to be safe to inject, although
further testing is needed before testing can begin in humans.

More information

The National Cancer Institute has more about nanotechnology uses in cancer treatment.