Injectable liquid alkali alloy based-tumor thermal ablation therapy

Abstract

The alkali metal was recently found to be a very useful agent for inducing minimally invasive tumor hyperthermia therapy. However, the solid-like metal makes it somewhat inconvenient to perform the surgery. Here, to overcome this drawback, the NaK alloy in liquid state at room temperature was proposed as a highly efficient thermal ablative agent for tumor treatment. For illustration purposes, the functionalized liquid NaK alloy at a mass ratio 1:1 was obtained and an amount of 0.35ml was injected into in vitro pork. The sizes of the damage region and temperature response were measured. It was found that significant temperature increase by a magnitude of > 80°C can easily be obtained. This produced a large coagulation and necrotic area within selected areas for in vitro tests and the necrotic region volume is three times that of the NaK injection quantity. Furthermore, for the in vivo experiment, breast EMT6 tumor in mouse was subjected to treatment by NaK alloy. Tumor was harvested after the experiment to assess its viability. Histological section showed complete necrosis at the target site. These conceptual results demonstrate that using injectable liquid alkali alloy to ablate tumor is rather promising. This study also raised interesting issues waiting for clarification in future technical and animal studies aiming to assess efficacy, side effects and safety of the new therapy.