Cold plasma selectivity and the possibility of a paradigm shift in cancer therapy
TL;DR: The development of cold plasma tumour ablation has the potential of shifting the current paradigm of cancer treatment and enabling the transformation ofcancer treatment technologies by utilisation of another state of matter.
Abstract: Plasma is an ionised gas that is typically generated in high-temperature laboratory conditions. However, recent progress in atmospheric plasmas has led to the creation of cold plasmas with ion temperature close to room temperature. Both in-vitro and in-vivo studies revealed that cold plasmas selectively kill cancer cells. We show that: (a) cold plasma application selectively eradicates cancer cells in vitro without damaging normal cells; and (b) significantly reduces tumour size in vivo. It is shown that reactive oxygen species metabolism and oxidative stress responsive genes are deregulated. The development of cold plasma tumour ablation has the potential of shifting the current paradigm of cancer treatment and enabling the transformation of cancer treatment technologies by utilisation of another state of matter.
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TL;DR: The aim of the new research field of plasma medicine is the exploitation of a much more differentiated interaction of specific plasma components with specific structural as well as functional elements or functionalities of living cells.
711 citations
TL;DR: The unique plasma-specific features and physical phenomena in the organization of nanoscale soild-state systems in a broad range of elemental composition, structure, and dimensionality are critically reviewed in this paper.
Abstract: The unique plasma-specific features and physical phenomena in the organization of nanoscale soild-state systems in a broad range of elemental composition, structure, and dimensionality are critically reviewed. These effects lead to the possibility to localize and control energy and matter at nanoscales and to produce self-organized nano-solids with highly unusual and superior properties. A unifying conceptual framework based on the control of production, transport, and self-organization of precursor species is introduced and a variety of plasma-specific non-equilibrium and kinetics-driven phenomena across the many temporal and spatial scales is explained. When the plasma is localized to micrometer and nanometer dimensions, new emergent phenomena arise. The examples range from semiconducting quantum dots and nanowires, chirality control of single-walled carbon nanotubes, ultra-fine manipulation of graphenes, nano-diamond, and organic matter to nano-plasma effects and nano-plasmas of different states of matter.
509 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a unified conceptual framework based on the control of production, transport, and self-organization of precursor species is introduced and a variety of plasma-specific non-equilibrium and kinetics-driven phenomena across the many temporal and spatial scales is explained.
Abstract: The unique plasma-specific features and physical phenomena in the organization of nanoscale solid-state systems in a broad range of elemental composition, structure, and dimensionality are critically reviewed. These effects lead to the possibility to localize and control energy and matter at nanoscales and to produce self-organized nano-solids with highly unusual and superior properties. A unifying conceptual framework based on the control of production, transport, and self-organization of precursor species is introduced and a variety of plasma-specific non-equilibrium and kinetics-driven phenomena across the many temporal and spatial scales is explained. When the plasma is localized to micrometer and nanometer dimensions, new emergent phenomena arise. The examples range from semiconducting quantum dots and nanowires, chirality control of single-walled carbon nanotubes, ultra-fine manipulation of graphenes, nano-diamond, and organic matter, to nano-plasma effects and nano-plasmas of different states of matter.
422 citations
TL;DR: Study indicate that the mechanism of action of cold plasma on cancer cells is related to generation of reactive oxygen species with possible induction of the apoptosis pathway and the cancer cells are more susceptible to the effects of CAP.
Abstract: Recent progress in atmospheric plasmas has led to the creation of cold plasmas with ion temperature close to room temperature. This paper outlines recent progress in understanding of cold plasma physics as well as application of cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) in cancer therapy. Varieties of novel plasma diagnostic techniques were developed recently in a quest to understand physics of CAP. It was established that the streamer head charge is about 108 electrons, the electrical field in the head vicinity is about 107 V/m, and the electron density of the streamer column is about 1019 m−3. Both in-vitro and in-vivo studies of CAP action on cancer were performed. It was shown that the cold plasma application selectively eradicates cancer cells in-vitro without damaging normal cells and significantly reduces tumor size in-vivo. Studies indicate that the mechanism of action of cold plasma on cancer cells is related to generation of reactive oxygen species with possible induction of the apoptosis pathway. It is also shown that the cancer cells are more susceptible to the effects of CAP because a greater percentage of cells are in the S phase of the cell cycle.
375 citations
TL;DR: This review provides a comprehensive introduction of the basics of CAP, state of the art research in this field, the primary challenges, and future directions to cancer biologists.
Abstract: // Dayun Yan 1 , Jonathan H. Sherman 2 and Michael Keidar 1 1 Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, The George Washington University, NW, Washington, DC, USA 2 Neurological Surgery, The George Washington University, NW, Washington, DC, USA Correspondence to: Dayun Yan, email: // Michael Keidar, email: // Keywords : cold plasma, cancer treatment, reactive species, selectivity Received : September 14, 2016 Accepted : October 29, 2016 Published : November 11, 2016 Abstract Over the past decade, cold atmospheric plasma (CAP), a near room temperature ionized gas has shown its promising application in cancer therapy. Two CAP devices, namely dielectric barrier discharge and plasma jet, show significantly anti-cancer capacity over dozens of cancer cell lines in vitro and several subcutaneous xenograft tumors in vivo. In contrast to conventional anti-cancer approaches and drugs, CAP is a selective anti-cancer treatment modality. Thus far establishing the chemical and molecular mechanism of the anti-cancer capacity of CAP is far from complete. In this review, we provide a comprehensive introduction of the basics of CAP, state of the art research in this field, the primary challenges, and future directions to cancer biologists.
375 citations
Cites background or methods or result from "Cold plasma selectivity and the pos..."
...For example, our study on a bladder tumor mouse xenograft through subcutaneous injection displays this effect [46] (Figure 6a)....
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...(b) Cold plasma treatment effect on the growth of established tumor in a murine melanoma model [46]....
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...As a result, the research in this field is mainly focused on describing the anti-cancer effect of CAP treatment on different cancer cell lines [41, 44] and tumors in animal models [20, 30, 46]....
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...The subcutaneous tumors are grown from the seeded bladder cancer cells (SCaBER) [46]....
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...Among these cancer cell lines, brain cancer [27, 47, 48], skin cancer [2, 19, 49], breast cancer [50-52], colorectal cancer [15, 53, 54], lung cancer [18, 46, 55], cervical cancer [56-58], leukemia [23, 59, 60], hepatoma [25, 37, 58], as well as head & neck cancer [61-63] have been intensively investigated (Figure 3c)....
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References
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TL;DR: Non-equilibrium plasmas will be shown to be non-destructive to tissue, safe, and effective in inactivation of various parasites and foreign organisms.
Abstract: An emerging field of plasma medicine is discussed, where non-equilibrium plasmas are shown to be able to initiate, promote, control, and catalyze various complex behaviors and responses in biological systems. More importantly, it will be shown that plasma can be tuned to achieve the desired medical effect, especially in medical sterilization and treatment of different kind of skin diseases. Wound healing and tissue regeneration can be achieved following various types of plasma treatment in a multitude of wound pathologies. Non-equilibrium plasmas will be shown to be non-destructive to tissue, safe, and effective in inactivation of various parasites and foreign organisms.
1,819 citations
TL;DR: This introductory review on plasma health care is intended to provide the interested reader with a summary of the current status of this emerging field, its scope, and its broad interdisciplinary approach, ranging from plasma physics, chemistry and technology, to microbiology, biochemistry, biophysics, medicine and hygiene.
Abstract: This introductory review on plasma health care is intended to provide the interested reader with a summary of the current status of this emerging field, its scope, and its broad interdisciplinary approach, ranging from plasma physics, chemistry and technology, to microbiology, biochemistry, biophysics, medicine and hygiene. Apart from the basic plasma processes and the restrictions and requirements set by international health standards, the review focuses on plasma interaction with prokaryotic cells (bacteria), eukaryotic cells (mammalian cells), cell membranes, DNA etc. In so doing, some of the unfamiliar terminology—an unavoidable by-product of interdisciplinary research—is covered and explained. Plasma health care may provide a fast and efficient new path for effective hospital (and other public buildings) hygiene— helping to prevent and contain diseases that are continuously gaining ground as resistance of pathogens to antibiotics grows. The delivery of medically active 'substances' at the molecular or ionic level is another exciting topic of research through effects on cell walls (permeabilization), cell excitation (paracrine action) and the introduction of reactive species into cell cytoplasm. Electric fields, charging of surfaces, current flows etc can also affect tissue in a controlled way. The field is young and hopes are high. It is fitting to cover the beginnings in New Journal of Physics, since it is the physics (and non- equilibrium chemistry) of room temperature atmospheric pressure plasmas that have made this development of plasma health care possible.
1,441 citations
"Cold plasma selectivity and the pos..." refers background in this paper
...The potential use in biomedical applications has driven the development of a variety of reliable and userfriendly plasma sources (Laroussi and Lu, 2005; Becker et al, 2006; Stoffels et al, 2006; Fridman et al, 2008; Kong et al, 2009; Morfill et al, 2009)....
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01 Jan 2008
1,208 citations
"Cold plasma selectivity and the pos..." refers background in this paper
...Recent progress in atmospheric plasmas has led to the creation of cold plasmas with ion temperature close to room temperature (Fridman, 2008; Fridman et al, 2008)....
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TL;DR: The microplasmas are generated under conditions that promote the efficient production of transient molecular species such as the rare gas excimers, which generally are formed by three-body collisions as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Atmospheric-pressure, non-equilibrium plasmas are susceptible to instabilities and, in particular, to arcing (glow-to-arc transition). Spatially confining the plasma to dimensions of 1 mm or less is a promising approach to the generation and maintenance of stable, glow discharges at atmospheric-pressure. Often referred to as microdischarges or microplasmas, these weakly-ionized discharges represent a new and fascinating realm of plasma science, where issues such as the possible breakdown of 'pd scaling' and the role of boundary-dominated phenomena come to the fore. Microplasmas are generated under conditions that promote the efficient production of transient molecular species such as the rare gas excimers, which generally are formed by three-body collisions. Pulsed excitation on a sub-microsecond time scale results in microplasmas with significant shifts in both the temperatures and energy distribution functions associated with the ions and electrons. This allows for the selective production of chemically reactive species and opens the door to a wide range of new applications of microplasmas. The implementation of semiconductor and microelectronics and MEMs microfabrication techniques has resulted in the realization of microplasma arrays as large as 250,000 devices. Fabricated in silicon or ceramics with characteristic device dimensions as small as 10 µm and at packing densities up to 104 cm−2, these arrays offer optical and electrical characteristics well suited for applications in medical diagnostics, displays and environmental sensing. Several microplasma device structures, including their fundamental properties and selected applications, will be discussed.
854 citations
"Cold plasma selectivity and the pos..." refers background in this paper
...The potential use in biomedical applications has driven the development of a variety of reliable and userfriendly plasma sources (Laroussi and Lu, 2005; Becker et al, 2006; Stoffels et al, 2006; Fridman et al, 2008; Kong et al, 2009; Morfill et al, 2009)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a device that is capable of generating a cold plasma plume several centimeters in length and exhibits low power requirements as shown by its currentvoltage characteristics.
Abstract: As low-temperature nonequilibrium plasmas come to play an increasing role in biomedical applications, reliable and user-friendly sources need to be developed. These plasma sources have to meet stringent requirements such as low temperature (at or near room temperature), no risk of arcing, operation at atmospheric pressure, preferably hand-held operation, low concentration of ozone generation, etc. In this letter, we present a device that meets exactly such requirements. This device is capable of generating a cold plasma plume several centimeters in length. It exhibits low power requirements as shown by its current-voltage characteristics. Using helium as a carrier gas, very little ozone is generated and the gas temperature, as measured by emission spectroscopy, remains at room temperature even after hours of operations. The plasma plume can be touched by bare hands and can be directed manually by a user to come in contact with delicate objects and materials including skin and dental gum without causing any heating or painful sensation.
605 citations
"Cold plasma selectivity and the pos..." refers background in this paper
...The potential use in biomedical applications has driven the development of a variety of reliable and userfriendly plasma sources (Laroussi and Lu, 2005; Becker et al, 2006; Stoffels et al, 2006; Fridman et al, 2008; Kong et al, 2009; Morfill et al, 2009)....
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