Russian scientists cured cancer in mice by heating the tumor

A form of intestinal cancer in mice was treated using magnetic hyperthermia. This method

involves the destruction of tumor cellsintense heat to destroy proteins. To ensure that healthy cells are not destroyed along with diseased cells, doctors inject a special substance with magnetic properties into the tumor - it is this substance that heats up, destroying tumor cells.

Now doctors are looking for materials and temperaturemodes that would be most effective for this procedure. MISiS specialists used cobalt ferrite nanoparticles, which have high magnetic properties and, therefore, are able to provide heating of cells and tissues in a wide temperature range in response to the influence of an electromagnetic field. In addition, cobalt ferrite nanoparticles were found to be stable under physiological conditions and not toxic to a living organism.

Observations were carried out on groups of animals with twovarious tumor models - patients with mildly aggressive colon cancer CT26 and aggressive metastatic breast cancer 4T1. Both groups received an injection of a suspension of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles into the tumor and further therapy with magnetic hyperthermia at three different temperature conditions.

One of the authors of the works, Anastasia Garanina       

The study found that cancer cellsthe colon are more sensitive to hyperthermia and die even when heated in the range of 41–43 ° С. Breast cancer was destroyed only at a temperature of 47 °, but the survival rate of laboratory animals that conducted experiments on hyperthermia with a heating temperature of more than 50 ° C was not more than 40%.

Now a team of scientists continues laboratory research to optimize the work of nanopreparations in the framework of preclinical studies.