2023-08-08 13:43:27
Thanks to the extreme light waves it will be possible to concentrate energy in a precise and non-invasive way in deep tumor tissues. This is the discovery of a group of researchers from Sapienza University of Rome, the Institute of Complex Systems of the CNR, the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart and the Agostino Gemelli Irccs University Hospital Foundation, who succeeded in transmitting extremely intense laser light through millimeter tumors. The result, published in ‘Nature Communications’, opens up important prospects for new phototherapy techniques for the treatment of cancer.
Laser light – reads a note – has enormous potential for the study and treatment of tumours. Laser beams capable of penetrating deep into tumor regions would be of vital importance for phototherapy, a set of cutting-edge biomedical techniques that use visible and infrared light to treat cancer cells or to activate drugs and biochemical processes. However, most biological tissue is optically opaque and absorbs incident radiation, and this represents the main obstacle to phototherapy treatments. Transmitting intense and localized light beams inside cellular structures is therefore one of the key challenges for biophotonics.
A research team of physicists and biotechnologists, led by Davide Pierangeli for the Institute of Complex Systems of the National Research Council (Cnr-Isc), Claudio Conti for the Sapienza University of Rome, and Massimiliano Papi for the Catholic University and the Fondazione Policlinico Agostino Gemelli Irccs, has discovered that “optical tsunamis” can form within tumor cell structures, light waves of extreme intensity, known in many complex systems, which can be exploited to transmit intense and concentrated laser light through samples three-dimensional tumors of pancreatic cancer.
“Studying laser propagation through tumor spheroids – explains Pierangeli – we realized that within a sea of weak transmitted light there were optical modes of extreme intensity. These extreme waves represent a super-intense source of micrometre-sized laser light within the tumor structure. They can be used to activate and manipulate biochemicals.”
“Our study shows how extreme waves, which until now had remained unnoticed in biological structures, are able to spontaneously transport energy through the tissues – continues Conti – and can be exploited for new biomedical applications”.
“With this extreme laser beam – concludes Massimiliano Papi, associate professor of Applied Physics at the Catholic University and head of the 3D bioprinting facility of Gemelli Science and Technology Park (G-STeP) – we could probe and treat a specific region of an organ. We have shown how such light can cause targeted temperature increases that induce cancer cell death, and this has important implications for photothermal therapies.”
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