New Delhi:
Chemotherapy, is a common procedure of treatment for everyone who has been diagnosed with cancer in the late stages. The treatment however is extremely painful, with lots of side effect from balding to body pain, following which many patients quit it midways
But researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem recently have designed a method of chemotherapy treatment where the drugs are delivered to the malignant or cancerous cells only bypassing the healthy ones. This method can keep the patients astray from developing side effects.
With this discovery, doctors aim to reduce chemo doses for patients, thereby reducing the unpleasant side-effects associated with the treatment.
"Most anti-cancer treatments are not sufficiently specific, meaning they attack healthy cells together with the malignant ones they're trying to get rid of," explained Professor Alexander Binshtok, head of Plain Plasticity Research Group at the University reported ANI.
"This leads to the many serious side-effects associated with chemotherapy. Eliminating cancerous cells while leaving healthy ones alone is an important step towards reducing patients' suffering," the professor added.
The findings were published in the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology.
The study focused on the selective expression of the TRPV2 protein by cancer cells. When activated, TRPV2 protein opens a canal inside cell membranes.
Researchers studied liver cancer cells and were able to successfully insert a low dose of doxorubicin, a chemotherapeutic agent, through the canal and directly into cancer cells.
"It's too early to make concrete predictions but we are hopeful this discovery will lead the way towards a new, more targeted delivery method for chemotherapy treatment, one that will drastically reduce patients' pain," Binshtok concluded.
