Nanobubble Injections Can Explode Tumors, Say Researchers

This seems to be an interesting approach to treat cancer!

"... Researchers say they can destroy cancerous tumors by injecting nanobubbles into the patient’s bloodstream – then exploding them.

The tiny bubbles – 2,500 times smaller than a single grain of salt – gather around the tumor and are then detonated by low frequency ultrasound waves. ...
They now hope it could become an effective alternative to surgical removal of tumors in humans. ...
The treatment can be used to effectively treat solid tumors deep within the body and is suitable for patients who are unfit for tumor resection surgery. The drawback, however, is that the heat and high intensity of the ultrasound waves may damage the tissues near the tumor. ..."

From the abstract:

"Scaling down the size of microbubble contrast agents to the nanometer level holds the promise for noninvasive cancer therapy. However, the small size of nanobubbles limits the obtained bioeffects as a result of ultrasound cavitation, when operating near the nanobubble resonance frequency. Here we show that coupled with low energy insonation at a frequency of 80 kHz, well below the resonance frequency of these agents, nanobubbles serve as noninvasive therapeutic warheads that trigger potent mechanical effects in tumors following a systemic injection. ... Complete nanobubble destruction was achieved at a mechanical index of 2.6 for the 250 kHz insonation vs. 1.2 for the 80 kHz frequency. ... In vitro in breast cancer tumor cells, the cell viability was reduced to 17.3 ± 1.7% of live cells. In vivo, in a breast cancer tumor mouse model, nanobubble tumor distribution and accumulation were evaluated by high frequency ultrasound imaging. Finally, nanobubble-mediated low frequency insonation of breast cancer tumors resulted in effective mechanical tumor ablation and tumor tissue fractionation. This approach provides a unique theranostic platform for safe, noninvasive and low energy tumor mechanotherapy."

Nanobubble Injections Can Explode Tumors, Say Researchers

Low frequency nanobubble-enhanced ultrasound mechanotherapy for noninvasive cancer surgery (no public access)