Yasmina Kattou
08:48, January 13, 2023
In Bordeaux, a team of researchers are betting on a new technology, nanoparticles, to treat patients with glioblastoma, one of the most dangerous brain cancers. The latter affects 3,500 French people each year.
Chemotherapy, hormone therapy, surgery, immunotherapy and radiotherapy… and now nanoparticles. In Bordeaux, a team of researchers has just obtained funding from the Medical Research Foundation as part of a project on nanoparticles to treat one of the most aggressive brain cancers: glioblastoma. As its name suggests, nanotherapy is infinitely small and that is its advantage.
A nanoparticle is 1,000 times thinner than the thickness of a hair
To give you an idea, a nanoparticle is 1,000 times thinner than the thickness of a hair. This microscopic size would allow in the case of a sensitive cancer like that of the brain to be more precise than the current surgery. “Obviously, the surgeon will not remove more than the tumor”, explains Sébastien Lecommandoux, head of the team in charge of the development of nanomedicines in a laboratory at the Institut national Polytechnique de Bordeaux. “You can’t scratch a little further, so there are always tumor cells that have started to spread into the surrounding tissues and that you can’t remove cell by cell.”
Nanoparticles capable of degrading tumor cells
The nanoparticles would then be used to prevent these tumor residues from recreating cancer. “It is a gel of nanoparticles that we would deposit in the brain. In fact, this deposit under the action of light or X-rays will gradually degrade to release very small nanoparticles which will be able to degrade tumor cells”, he continues at the microphone of Europe 1.
The results of the laboratory tests for the moment conclusive could make it possible to carry out tests on the patients within five to ten years.
Source: Europe1
I’m a journalist who covers health care news. I’ve been working in the news industry for more than 6 years. I have experience writing for print, online, and television. My work has been published by various news websites and magazines.
