Minimally invasive cancer therapy using polyhydroxy fullerenes

Abstract

Every year, 1.3 million women are diagnosed with breastcancer worldwide [1]. Breast cancer remains the most commonmalignancy among United States (U.S.) women affecting nearly 1in 8 women [2]. Breast cancer is also the second most commoncause of cancer related mortality among U.S. women [2]. Currenttreatment strategies typically involve disfiguring and painfuloperations that have tremendous health and psychological side-effects. New, effective, painless non-invasive treatment strategieswith minimal side-effects are needed to advance treatment ofbreastcancer.Photothermal therapy is an emerging strategy which usesdeeply penetrating near infrared (NIR) light to activate certainnanomaterials, resulting in localized photothermal cancer celllysis [3,4]. This treatment paradigm offers the possibility ofdestroying tumors without the side effects to other surroundingtissues seen with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy.Concerns over the safety and biocompatibility of nanostructurescurrentlyunderdevelopmentforphotothermaltherapy(gold-basednanostructures and carbon nanotubes) may limit their clinicaldevelopment and application [5]. Over 80% of these injectednanomaterials (gold based nanostructures and carbon nanotubes)accumulate in the liver and spleen with unknown long-termconsequences [6,7].Clinical advances in breast magnetic resonance (MR) imagingare providing unprecedented insight into characterization andlocalization of breast cancers. Breast MR is currently the mostsensitive clinical test for breast cancer detection [8]. In addition,tocarefullycharacterizingthenature,size,andlocationofprimarybreast tumors, breast MR is identifying small secondary sitesof breast cancer in the ipsilateral and contralateral breast [8–10]. Work from our research group [9] and others [10] have