Abstract
Simple SummaryCombining tumor surgery with other types of treatment can be useful when dealing with aggressive tumors or tumors in difficult locations. Photothermal therapy (PTT) is a technique based on the use of light-absorbing nanoparticles that accumulate in the tumor. When tumors are irradiated with a laser, these nanoparticles transform the laser light into heat, causing very localized tumor death and sparing healthy neighboring tissues. In this study, we evaluated a treatment strategy consisting of surgery followed by PTT in a highly aggressive mouse model of fibrosarcoma. Using magnetic resonance imaging, we observed a slowdown in tumor growth accompanied by improved survival in mice that underwent PTT and surgery compared to animals that only had surgery. This shows the potential of combining PTT with surgery, an approach that can potentially be valuable to multiple types of cancer.Surgery is still the first-line treatment for multiple solid cancers. However, recurrence is a common issue, especially when dealing with aggressive tumors or tumors that are difficult to completely remove due to their location. Getting clear surgical margins can be challenging, but treatment strategies combining surgery with other anti-cancer therapies can potentially improve the outcome. Photothermal therapy (PTT) is a technique that relies on photoabsorbing agents, such as gold nanoparticles, to transform light into local hyperthermia. This technique can be used to ablate tumor tissue where the photoabsorbing agent accumulates, sparing healthy surrounding tissue. In this study, we examined the potential of gold nanoparticle-based PTT as an adjuvant treatment to surgery in a mouse model of human fibrosarcoma. For this we performed subtotal tumor resection to mimic a clinical situation where total tumor removal is not achieved, and subsequent PTT was applied on the surgical field. Our results showed that animals undergoing adjuvant PTT after surgery presented sustained delayed tumor growth and improved survival when compared to animals that only underwent surgery. We believe that these findings show the potential of PTT as an adjuvant method to traditional tumor surgery and could pave way to more personalized treatment options.
Highlights
Introduction distributed under the terms andCancer treatment has relied heavily on surgery for many years, and notwithstanding the introduction of many novel therapeutic modalities in oncology, resection is still central to the removal of solid tumors
We studied the feasibility of using Photothermal therapy (PTT) to ablate small tumor remnants left after surgery (Figure 1A)
Mice bearing subcutaneous HT1080 tumors of ~150 mm3 were divided into three groups: mice injected with NS and undergoing combination treatment, i.e., surgery followed by PTT; mice injected with saline and undergoing combination treatment; and mice not injected with anything and undergoing surgery but no PTT
Summary
Introduction distributed under the terms andCancer treatment has relied heavily on surgery for many years, and notwithstanding the introduction of many novel therapeutic modalities in oncology, resection is still central to the removal of solid tumors. The use of PTT as an adjuvant treatment to surgery has proven promising in mouse models of breast cancer [13,14,15], showcasing the potential of PTT as a tool to achieve clearance of residual disease when complete surgical tumor resection is not possible due to, for example, the location of the tumor. This is challenging with highly infiltrative tumors
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