Search Results (4)

Head and neck cancer (HNC) includes various malignancies and represents the seventh most common cancer worldwide. The early diagnosis of HNC results in a 70–90% five-year survival rate, which declines with locally advanced stages of disease. Current care employs a multimodal strategy encompassing surgery, radiation therapy (RT), chemotherapy, and immunotherapy, while treatment options vary according to the stage, tumor features, and patient characteristics. About 75% of patients with HNC will benefit from RT, either as a primary treatment or as adjuvant therapy following surgical resection. Technological improvements in RT, such as intensity-modulated RT (IMRT) and image-guided RT (IGRT), have enhanced tumor targeting and minimized adjacent healthy tissue irradiation while also expanding RT to the recurrent or metastatic setting. Innovative therapeutic strategies for HNC integrate RT with immunotherapy, gene therapy, molecular targeted therapy, photodynamic therapy, photothermal therapy, and nanoparticles (NPs), with the objective of optimizing tumor control while reducing damage to normal tissues. NPs are emerging as possible radiosensitizers in HNC treatment, enhancing the efficacy of RT, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy. In vivo and in vitro studies on the irradiation of tumors containing gold (Au), gadolinium (Gd), and hafnium oxide (HfO₂) NPs show promising results in enhancing tumor destruction and survival rates, indicating their potential for clinical application. Hyperthermia, investigated as an adjunct treatment, potentially improves outcomes when combined with RT or chemotherapy, with advancements in nanotechnology renewing interest in this approach in HNC. At present, NBTXR3 is the sole NP that is being investigated in clinical trials for the enhancement of HNC RT. Full article

High-atomic-number (Z) nanoparticles produce a cascade of low-energy secondary electrons and characteristic X-rays when ionized by X-ray irradiation. These secondary particles deposit their energy in the vicinity of the nanoparticles and, provided that the latter are selectively accumulated within tumor cells, this results in increased DNA damage and tumor cell deaths. This study reviews the utilization of high-Z nanoparticles in the treatment of soft tissue sarcomas (STS). Both in vitro and in vivo experiments demonstrated that the dose is enhanced by approximately 1.2 when polyethelyne glycol (PEG)-modified gold nanoparticles, and from 1.4 to 1.8 when hafnium oxide nanoparticles (NBTXR3, Nanobiotix SA, France) are introduced into tumor cells and activated by X-ray beams. In a phase 2/3 clinical trial investigating the therapeutic benefit of using nanoparticles in preoperative external beam radiotherapy for locally advanced STS, the proportion of patients with a pathological complete response in their resected tumor was doubled when NBTXR3 nanoparticles were used. Additionally, a higher percentage of patients with complete tumor resection was observed in the NBTXR3 plus radiotherapy group. Similar toxicity profiles were found for both the NBTXR3 plus radiotherapy and the radiotherapy alone patient groups. The incorporation of radio-sensitizing nanoparticles in the preoperative radiotherapy of STS could enhance treatment outcomes. Full article

Radiotherapy is one of the most common therapeutic regimens for cancer treatment. Over the past decade, proton therapy (PT) has emerged as an advanced type of radiotherapy (RT) that uses proton beams instead of conventional photon RT. Both PT and carbon-ion beam therapy (CIBT) exhibit excellent therapeutic results because of the physical characteristics of the resulting Bragg peaks, which has been exploited for cancer treatment in medical centers worldwide. Although particle therapies show significant advantages to photon RT by minimizing the radiation damage to normal tissue after the tumors, they still cause damage to normal tissue before the tumor. Since the physical mechanisms are different from particle therapy and photon RT, efforts have been made to ameliorate these effects by combining nanomaterials and particle therapies to improve tumor targeting by concentrating the radiation effects. Metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) exhibit many unique properties, such as strong X-ray absorption cross-sections and catalytic activity, and they are considered nano-radioenhancers (NREs) for RT. In this review, we systematically summarize the putative mechanisms involved in NRE-induced radioenhancement in particle therapy and the experimental results in in vitro and in vivo models. We also discuss the potential of translating preclinical metal-based NP-enhanced particle therapy studies into clinical practice using examples of several metal-based NREs, such as SPION, Abraxane, AGuIX, and NBTXR3. Furthermore, the future challenges and development of NREs for PT are presented for clinical translation. Finally, we propose a roadmap to pursue future studies to strengthen the interplay of particle therapy and nanomedicine. Full article

NBTXR3 nanoparticle injection is a relatively novel radioenhancer for treatment of various cancers. CT scans following NBTXR3 injection of metastatic lymph nodes from head and neck squamous cell carcinoma were reviewed in a small series of patients. The radioenhancing appears as hyperattenuating, with a mean attenuation of the injected material of 1516 HU. The material was found to leak beyond the margins of the tumor in some cases. Full article