Hyderabad: Using calcium phosphate nano-particles to develop biodegradable contrast agents help identify cancer cells easily and can be killed through radiation more effectively, according to a technology developed by Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences in Kochi, funded by the department of biotechnology. This breakthrough finding was reported in Nature Scientific Reports where it was evaluated that this method is a safer way to kill cancer cells.
Calcium phosphate is a biomineral found in human bones. It is also found that it is fully biodegradable to radio frequency agents. Due to this reason, it becomes easy to identify cancer cells in MRI and CT scans. This will pave way for safer cheaper diagnosis and also treatment of cancer, stated Dr Shanti Nair, a senior scientist at the institute.
It was found that calcium phosphate is non-toxic and fully biodegradable due to which their accumulation in tumors could be verified and it helped in identifying cancer cells from normal cells.
The current treatment procedures of chemotherapy and radiation are used to kill the cancer cells. But it is a known fact that many healthy cells also get destroyed along with the cancer cells. There is also cyber knife but that is expensive.
