New treatment can zap cancer cells and avoid healthy tissue

Aug 30 2005

Australian researchers say they have developed a cancer treatment which can identify and kill individual cancer cells.

The treatment which uses antibodies and DNA to target the cells, is attached to a radioactive atom, which destroys the cancer cells.

Apparently the cancer-killing molecules have already been effective in laboratory tests and could undergo clinical trials within five years.

Dr Tom Karagiannis, of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne says the treatment is a first as it uses two levels of targeting.

Karagiannis says with the treatment they target not only the cancer cell, but also the DNA of the cell, and he says this is the first time this has been done using these types of isotopes.

Dr Karagiannis says the new treatment is the most specific yet developed, and the radiation technique is aimed at only killing cancer cells.

It apparently irradiates a volume of only one millionth of a millimetre and because it does that, they are able to kill cancer cells specifically without doing damage to healthy tissue.