Treatment of prostate cancer with tea leaves!
Using gold nanoparticles and a compound found in tea leaves, researchers have developed a more effective method for targeting prostate cancer tumors.
Currently, high doses of chemotherapy drugs must be used to treat some types of cancer, which can have serious side effects.
Researchers at the University of Missouri have developed a more effective way to target prostate cancer tumors using gold nanoparticles and a compound found in tea leaves.
With this new method, very low doses of chemotherapy drugs are needed and these drugs do not spread throughout the body and therefore do not damage healthy tissues.
In this study, we found that a specific compound in tea leaves is absorbed into cancer cells in the prostate, said Professor Katesh Katie, a professor of radiology and physics at the School of Medicine and the School of Arts and Sciences.
When we combined this tea leaf compound with radioactive gold nanoparticles, we obtained a product in which the tea leaf compound helps the nanoparticles reach the tumor, and then the gold nanoparticles kill the cancer cells well.
The researchers found that the compound could be used to fight advanced prostate cancer.
Doctors are currently treating this type of cancer by injecting hundreds of radioactive seeds into the prostate. However, according to Katie Cutler, another researcher, this type of treatment is not responsive when skin cancer is progressive.
The size of these grains and their inability to effectively deliver to the progressive tumor prevents the treatment of this type of prostate cancer.
Researchers at the University of Missouri in this study produced nanoparticles of the right size. Instead of hundreds of injections, they only did the particle injection once or twice, and with the same amount, the injected nanoparticles were very likely to remain near the tumor.
Current treatments do not work for patients with advanced prostate cancer, says Cutler.
In many cases, prostate cancer grows slowly and stays in place, making it easy to manage. The progressive form of the cancer spreads to different parts of the body, making it the second deadliest cancer in American men.
However, we believe that these gold nanoparticles can reduce or eliminate both normal and progressive prostate cancer.