Health

'Bubbles' may help treat cancer

by Paul Conneally | October 19, 2008 at 09:50 am

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Chemotherapy can be very effective but the chemicals used reach every part of the body and can cause problems.

This method offers hope of being able to target specific areas of the body with the chemicals by carrying them around in bubbles and bursting them where the site of mutation is.

Bursting balloons in the bloodstream is being investigated as a new way of attacking cancer.

The "balloons" are cell-sized polymer bubbles filled with anti-cancer drugs.

The idea is to track the bubbles through the bloodstream and burst them at the site of tumours with a focused ultrasound pulse.

As a result the chemotherapy agents are released only where needed and are less likely to damage healthy cells.

Steve Klink, from the Netherlands-based electronics company Philips which is pioneering the technology, told The Engineer magazine: "Traditional chemotherapy is administered to every part of the body and is certainly an effective therapy for patients, but it does have side effects."