Application Of Nanotechnology : Diagnosis And Treatment Of Tumors Essay

We have decided to research techniques to better engineer medicines. Making medicine more personalized and tailoring them to a patient’s body chemistry can greatly reduce the risk of side effects and can make treatment more efficient. This can be done by using information about the patient’s genetic makeup and where the disease is localized in order to target the infected cells specifically. We have decided to narrow down our research on cancer, specifically leukemia. Cancer can result from any number of genetic mutations and these malfunctions can lead to an unmanageable division of abnormal cells that then leads to the growth and spread of tumors. Leukemia is a type of cancer originating in the bone marrow. Because leukemias are cancers of the blood, it does not create any solid tumors. Instead, the cancerous leukemia cells circulate in the blood, going virtually everywhere. Diagnosis is commonly made by blood tests or bone marrow biopsy. However, it is difficult to detect leukemia early on since patients with slow-growing types of leukemia don’t present with symptoms until much later, making treatment difficult and less effective. Furthermore, the treatments currently being used, for example stem cells transplants, have a number of side effects such as infertility, chronic fatigue, thyroid dysfunction and the probable risk of developing a second cancer. The challenge, therefore, is to modify the means for early detection of cancer, improving personalized

Cancer is a term used for diseases in which irregular cells divide without any control and have the capability to penetrate and infect normal body tissue through the blood and lymph system. Cancer is the second leading cause of mortality in the United States, exceeded barely by heart disease. According to the CDC Cancer Statistics and Data, there were more than 1.45 million people diagnosed with various kind of cancer between 1999 and 2007 and out of those more than 562,000 people died due to cancer (cdc.gov, 2012). Currently there are more than 200 different types of cancer that have been discovered. Cancer could be

Many doctors, physicians, researchers and biotech companies--including the revolutionary Seattle Genetics research facility--are now turning to antibody-assisted cancer treatments and precisely targeted cures instead of treating cancer with a cocktail of chemicals and radiation that generate risky side effects and damage the healthy tissue that patients need to recover. Cancers are among the most frightening and difficult-to-treat illnesses. Ranked as the leading cause of death and disability, cancer is actually an umbrella term that covers many different diseases. Each person faces a unique disease because cancers interact with the body's existing cells, so each case has a

1. Introduction and Problem Statement: Cancer has a major societal impact in the United States and across the globe. In 2015, an estimated 1,658,370 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in United States, and 589,430 people are estimated to die of the disease. Unfortunately, low cancer cell availability in human samples is a current barrier for early disease detection. There is an unmet medical need to improve methods of early cancer detection so that patients can receive treatment before cancer metastasizes to other areas of the body, resulting in better health outcomes.

For years people have been looking for a cure for the devastating disease of cancer. Cancer is the third highest killer in the US with over 2,500,000 victims per year. Oncologists and scientists around the country are researching all forms of cancer in an effort to understand, treat, and ultimately defeat this disease. Already there have been numerous advances in the field, such as chemotherapy and gene therapy. One advance has been the use of a cell process known as apoptosis. By harnessing this normal cell process, scientists hope to have found an effective way to combat cancer.

It is no secret that cancer is leading cause of death in the world. It was estimated that in 2012, 14.1 million new cases of cancer occurred worldwide and 8.2 million people died as a result of cancer [1]. Cancer prevalence is increasing at an alarming rate, yet the progress of treatment has been slow, with benefits of treatment being measured in only months or even weeks. Most patients with a specific type of cancer at a certain stage will receive the exact same form of treatment, but it has been made clear that while the treatment works well for some, it does not for a significant amount of others. The treatment that patients receive today is based on

Cancer is listed as the second most common cause of death in western countries; particularly, in adults. Though it has a long antiquity, its prevalence and incidence today is pervasive and the war on cancer has not been promising. Malignant neoplasia is characterized by uncontrolled growth and the ability to metastasize or spread from the original site. Cancer results from mutations that promote cell proliferation and inhibit cell adhesion (metastasis). According to the National Cancer Institute (2016), “Cancer can also spread regionally,

All things considered, there is an abundance of information we don’t know about cancer, which is alarming as it can be life threatening. However, doctors have discovered several ways to treat people diagnosed with cancer. In addition to treatments, there are symptoms and diagnostic tests to help people find out if they are at risk of, or have

Currently the world is fighting an ostensibly insurmountable disease. In 2012, this disease created 14 million new cases worldwide and was responsible for an estimated 8.2 million deaths (“Cancer Statistics”). While these statistics already demonstrate a wide-spread impact, the number of cases related to this disease is expected to increase to an alarming 22 million within the next two decades (“Cancer Statistics”). This disease is known to reside latently within our human cells and emerge, unsuspectedly, at an indefinite time. If this disease is not identified within its infancy, major consequences follow- one of which is death. This disease is known as cancer, and it has impacted our society in a devastating

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide as it can develop in almost any organ or tissue. Significant advances in understanding the cellular basis of cancer and the underlying biological mechanisms of tumour has been vastly improved in the recent years (Jiang et al. 1994). Cancer is a genetic disease which requires a series of mutation during mitosis to develop, its characteristics can be associated with their ability to grow and divide abnormal cells uncontrollable while in the mean time invade and cause nearby blood vessels to serve its need. Even though many people are affected by cancer today, the abilities which cancer cells have make it hard to find a single effective treatment for cancer. The focus of research now lies

Cancer is one of the most ambiguous diseases. As Jenny Phillips, a researcher in the thoracic oncology field, said, “I think the thing you need to know most about cancer is that we don’t know that much about it.” Yes, it is known that cancer is the uncontrollable division of abnormal cells, but how can it be stopped? That is the question. There are a number of treatments for this disease. There are the traditional treatments: chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. There are also nontraditional treatments such as the use of oncolytic viruses, acupuncture, and the targeting of matrices. Aside from these treatments, are some other treatments that have recently been on the rise: personalized medicine, targeted therapy, and stereotactic radiosurgery. However, despite the number of treatments available for cancer, it is yet to be

The number of cancer cases does not seem to be depleting despite the fact that science in terms of medical aspect especially and technology are becoming more advance nowadays. Even though the cure for cancer seems still out of reach, the research for it still continues. As the year progresses, cancer studies have been done in several models both in vivo (Rine, 2013) and in silico (Jeanquartier, Jean-Quartier, Cemernek, & Holzinger, 2016). These models enabled researcher and scientist to understand the systemic mechanism that occurred within a living organism.

Cancerous cells tend to mutate, grow, and divide without any particular order, and can spread unpredictably through the body via the blood stream. Most cancers start off as a single cell that undergoes an irregular mutation that alters the cells normal levels of melanin, cell membrane structure, and division speed. The cancerous cell then undergoes unprecedented division, and eventually creates a malignant abscess of tissue that overwhelms the population of healthy cells. Eventually, individual clumps of cells can break away from the parent group of cells and spread across the entire body. Although cancerous cells usually do not directly harm other cells in the body, they can block other cells ability to circulate their waste and absorb nutrients, ultimately leading to cellular starvation and death. Ever since cancer first became evident in society around 1600 B.C., humanity has striven to combat this seemingly incorrigible disease, creating procedures ranging from bloodletting to urbane chemotherapies. Although we undoubtedly improved our ability to identify and treat cancer, scientists have never had the chance to track the specific patterns it has spread in until now.

The idea of placing a very small controllable object into the human body in order to accomplish a medical feat, believe it or not, came from a science fiction film! In 1966, a movie by the name of Fantastic Voyage was produced and explored the subject. In this movie, a spy with critical information was nearly assassinated and left comatose with a potentially fatal clot in his brain. To save his life and to retrieve the top secret information, a submarine was shrunk to microbe size and injected into his body with a team of surgeons onboard. The team navigated to his brain to mechanically destroy the clot and save the spy along with his secret information.

The enormous potential in the biomedical capabilities of nano robots and the imprecision and side effects of medical treatments today make nano robots very desirable.