Nanomedicine May Be the Future of Cancer Treatment

In 2018, more than 1.7 million people received a cancer diagnosis, and about 600,000 of them are expected to succumb to their disease despite treatment. As new advanced treatments are developed, however, the number of people who die from cancer is expected to decline just as it has over the past few decades. An innovative treatment involving nanomedicine may soon be one of the reasons why more and more people survive cancer.

Nanomedicine is offering hope to cancer patients. The term nanomedicine refers to any medical application or treatment that uses nanotechnology. Technology can include but is not limited to, biosensors, tissue engineering, minute diagnostic devices and much more. In cancer treatment, nanomedicine allows practitioners to precisely target cancer cells without damaging nearby tissues. Here we will explore how nanomedicine works and what the hopes are for its use.

What Is Nanomedicine?

Nanomedicine refers to a branch of medicine that relies on nanotechnology, or the study of small technology, to prevent, diagnose and treat disease. Nanotechnology can take many forms, including biocompatible nanoparticles and nanorobots.

In nanomedicine, everything is tiny, precise and targeted. This allows for the treatment of a specific area, which gives medical professionals more options for treating complex medical conditions, such as cancer.

How Nanomedicine Works

If regular medicine can be likened to treating an entire lawn with weed killer for a pesky weed situation, nanomedicine is like applying weed killer to individual weeds without getting any on the blades of grass surrounding them. Its purpose is to be highly and precisely targeted. This allows for the delivery of chemotherapy and other cancer drugs directly to the tumor. The hope is two-fold: the treatment does not affect surrounding tissues, and because of this, it can be stronger.

Let’s take a closer look at nanomedicine in action. Researchers are now using nanomedicine in targeted chemotherapy treatment. In this application, researchers utilize cells or cell membranes, harvested from the patient, to create synthetic nanoparticles that can deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to tumors.

The Future of Nanomedicine

Nanomedicine is a broad umbrella term under which there are various treatments and diagnostic tools that utilize or manipulate matter that is smaller than 100 nanometers. As such, the applications for cancer diagnosis and treatment are many and varied, as are the applications for many other illnesses.

As shown in the example above, one of the uses of nanomedicine is to deliver drugs to a targeted area. This ensures that drugs are not diluted before they reach their destination and that nearby tissues and organ systems are not affected by the drug.

Nanoparticles can also be used as a contrast agent to improve the readability of imaging tests. There are also small cameras and/or sensors that can be placed in the body as monitoring systems. While more research is necessary and forthcoming, it seems obvious that the future of nanomedicine holds many possibilities.

Nanomedicine is giving hope to people who have received a cancer diagnosis. What’s more, the precise and targeted nature of nanomedicine may mean patients have a better chance of overcoming cancer, as well as lowering their probability of treatment complications. For these reasons and more, nanomedicine is likely to be at the forefront of cancer treatment innovation in the years to come.

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