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Advantages of nanomedicine
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589,430 people from the United States are estimated to die from cancer in 2015 (ACI, 2015). Seeing a loved one die from cancer heartbreaking. Seeing a loved one suffer from the side effects of cancer treatment is just as hard. The battle to treat cancer has been stressful and harsh to patients. The most popular way to treat cancer today is through chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is a way of treating cancer using chemical substances, specifically anti-cancer drugs. A new and emerging way to treat cancer is nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is the science of regulating matter on the scale of molecules (NCI, 2012, Para 1). Nanotechnology gives the power to selectively treat cancer cells unlike chemotherapy.
Nanotechnology is a more successful way to treat cancer than chemotherapy because it offers the power to selectively treat cancerous cells without harming normal cells and giving fewer side effects to patients. Nanotechnology is more powerful in selecting cancerous cells and killing them, whereas chemotherapy is not as skillful and presents several side effects. Chemotherapy creates several dangerous side effects including toxicity to vital organs as the result of killing normal cells. (Gunjal, Schneider, Abdelbaset, Kakar, Kucia and Ratajczak, 2015, pg. 1). Having the ability to treat only cancerous cells in nanotechnology is a safer alternative and causes a lot less pain to patients.
During cancer treatment, nanotechnology does not kill normal cells while chemotherapy destroys countless of healthy cells. Nanotechnology is able to distinguish cancerous cells from normal cells in Magnetic Resonance Imaging by using particles like iron oxide based nanoparticles, gadolinium based nanoparticles and gold nanoparticles (Mody, Pharm, 2011 pg...
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...involved in chemotherapy include toxicity to vital organs as the result of killing normal cells(Gunjal, Schneider, Abdelbaset, Kakar, Kucia and Ratajczak, 2015, pg. 1 ). The special skill provided with nanotechnology allows treatment to be safe.
Nanotechnology is still emerging today and will continue to grow with time and research. Nanotechnology has proven to be the best method for treating pathologies like cancer. Even though nanotechnology still requires some research to overcome a few barriers, nanotechnology has made dreams turn into realities. Knowing that a safer cancer treatment is being studied and researched and has a huge possibility to replace chemotherapy should give friends and families hope if they ever hear that a loved one is diagnosed with cancer. Winning a battle with cancer won’t be such a painful struggle in the future thanks to nanotechnology.
Over the years, surgery has made tremendous progress while changing human perspective; viewed as “no more science than butchery” a couple of centuries ago to now considered to be a solution for many health care problems threatening humans, like cancer, heart disease and kidney failure. Nevertheless, surgery has not been perfected to a level that provides successful results every time it is performed on patients. For example, surgery done to remove tumors in cancer patients result in only 45% of individuals to be cured. However, in order to be successful, the surgical procedure has to be carried out incredibly precisely and incomplete removal of tumors can decrease survival rate. Therefore, surgeons have to be able to recognize diseased tissue and distinguish it between healthy tissues. But even with the use of radioactive tracers and visuals, surgeons are not able to identify the exact site of the unhealthy tissue and its boundaries. Thus, almost 40% of the time cancerous cells are left behind because even the best qualified surgeons are not successful at the nanotechnological scale of tissue.
Amandi Hiyare: Before forming my research question, I had a discussion with my research project coordinator “Lisa Pope” who told me that the Flinders nanotechnology research team has been developing microbial catheters. Then on Monday I had an interview with Professor Joe Shapter who told me that your team was leading this project. So I was wondering whether you would be able to provide me with some detailed information about this innovation?
U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment. 1990. Unconventional Cancer Treatments, OTA-H-405. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Cancer is a disease in which cells multiply out of control and gradually build a mass of tissue called a tumor. There has been a large amount of research dedicated to the treatment and cure of cancer. Several types of treatments have been developed. The following are just some of the major examples of cancer therapy: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, biologic therapy, biorhythms, unconventional treatments, and hyperthermia. Each type of treatment is discussed in detail below.
As modern humans, we understand that the quality of our health is affected by the negative impacts, such as air pollution, water and food. Science is developing in much faster way but at the same time number of problems are also arising. Problems like infectious diseases, diseases without any treatment or whose treatments are available up to a lesser extent such as Lung cancer, prostate cancer, skin cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, penile cancer etc. Cancer is responsible for one in seven deaths. It is epidemic disease thefore its consequences can be seen worldwide. More than twelve million new cases diagnosed yearly and the rate is increasing much faster (Hegde, j.j. 2009). Large number of patients die after developing cancer despite the availabity of various treatments, therefore there is a increase demand for a developing new approaches to cancer therapy. There are number of treatments available but the problem is that they have number of side effects, disturbance or effect on the norm...
In 2013, the United States was said to have an estimated 1.6 million cancer patients. The majority of cancer patients turn to chemotherapy in hope to kill off all the spreading cancer cells so they can have a chance to live again. Chemotherapy is defined as the use of any drug to treat any disease, however people most commonly associate chemotherapy with drugs used to treat cancer. Although chemotherapy could be very effective, the rate of success solely depends on the type of cancer the patient has and could potentially be only one or two percent successful.
Wang, K., Wu, X., & Huang, J. (2013, February 28). Cancer stem cell theory: therapeutic implications for nanomedicine. Retrieved December 12, 2013, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3589204/
Nanomedicine is offering incredible and innovative therapies like cancer nanomedicine, nanosurgery, and tissue engineering. In cancer nanomedicine, they use “targeted drug delivery” to target the tumor itself and avoid harming the normal, healthy cells (Berger, 2017). This in return, offers a more effective treatment with better outcomes and less side effects. In cancer nanomedicine, nanoparticles are used as tumor destroying mediators that use high temperatures to destroy them. These nanoparticles have to be injected into the tumor, then they have to be activated to produce this heat and then they are destroyed via a magnetic field, X-rays, or light (Berger,
Chemotherapy is the use of chemicals to cure cancer. Chemotherapy is also known as “chemo”. The term for chemo came from the German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich around the year 1900. He came up with the term when he was examining aniline dyes and arsenicals as possible treatments for diseases such as syphilis. He envisioned “magic bullets” that would be able to target invading organisms but still leave the host unscathed. This goal has been providing therapeutic benefits without many side effects in all areas of drug development. There has been a lot of success with compounds that modulate normal biochemistry within the body.
Cancer is a major public health problem in many parts of the world. Over ten million new cases of cancer, with over six million deaths were estimated in the year 2000 (Parkin, 2001). The estimated numbers of incidence and mortality in 2002 were markedly increased as 10.9 million new cases, 6.7 million deaths with cancer (Parkin et al., 2005). Even developed countries suffering from cancer, in USA it was expected 2677860 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in 2009. In that same year , more than 562,340 deaths will occur due to cancer, this number represent 25 % of all deaths and makes cancer as a second leading cause of death after heart diseases (Jemal et al.
When we hear, cancer treatment, our minds naturally shoot straight to chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is the most commonly used way to treat cancer. There is a saying that goes “Chemotherapy is an opponent itself simultaneously caring you and hurting you”. (Morasca, 2015). Cancer refers to the abnormal growth of cells which tend to proliferate in an uncontrolled way and in some cases, it spreads to other parts of the body. The main types of cancer treatment include: surgery, radiation therapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy, hormone therapy, stem cell transplant, precision medicine, and chemotherapy.
“Since 1990, over 6 million Americans have died of cancer, more than the combined casualties from the Civil war, WWII, and the Vietnam and Korean conflicts combined” (Faguet, p. 5). According to American Cancer Society projections, there were 1,529,560 new cases of cancer in 2010. Cancer is becoming more and more common around the world. New cancers are constantly being discovered. Researchers are finding new ways to detect cancer and treat it so that the fatality rate does not rise. However, there are some cancers that researchers have not yet discovered a cure for. It is very important for Cancer Research to continue so that one day these cancers will no longer be a treat.
Cancer is the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the body. Tumors are then created and interfering with the digestive, nervous and circulatory systems. It is one of the most leading causes of death, reaching at about 8.2 million deaths in 2012. It is expected that cancer will rise from 14 million to 22 million within the next 2 decades. With over 100 cancer research centers in the United States studying how to treat this disease, people need to understand the importance of donating also with the awareness of signs and symptoms in the early stages. But, what are we doing about it? Do we have the technology to finally be able to put this deadly disease to an end?
I have chosen nanotechnology as my topic area of choice from the food innovation module.
Nanotechnology includes nanorobots which are so small that they can be injected into the human bloodstream after which the nanorobots can do investigations or repair at cellular level. Nanorobots could optimize the delivery of pharmaceutical products, these means that medicines which are targeted on a specific type of cells can be delivered to only those cells by the nanorobots. The robots can attach to the cells after which they can inject the drug into the target cells. This could be a great breakthrough for cancer treatments such as chemotherapy because there is a minimal chance of injecting healthy cells with the drug and therefor negative side effects can be avoided.