Search results for "Tumor therapy"

Recent Advances in Desmoid Tumor Therapy

2020

The desmoid tumor is a locally aggressive proliferative disease within the family of soft-tissue sarcomas. Despite its relatively good prognosis, the clinical management of desmoid tumors requires constant multidisciplinary evaluation due to its highly variable clinical behavior. Recently, active surveillance has being regarded as the appropriate strategy at diagnosis, as indolent persistence or spontaneous regressions are not uncommon. Here, we review the most recent advances in desmoid tumor therapy, including low-dose chemotherapy and treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors. We also explore the recent improvements in our knowledge of the molecular biology of this disease, which are lea…

Recent developments and applications of smart nanoparticles in biomedicine

2022

Abstract Over the last decades, nanotechnology applied in medicine (nanomedicine) has sparked great interest from the scientific community, thanks to the possibility to engineer nanostructured materials, including nanoparticles (NPs), for a specific application. Their small size confers them unique properties because they are subject to physical laws in the middle between classical and quantum physics. This review is proposed to explain better how to design a specific NP and clarify the relationship between the type, size, and shape of NPs and the specific medical applications. NPs are classified into inorganic (metallic NPs, quantum dots, carbon-based nanostructures, mesoporous silica NPs)…

Summary

2004

Regulatory T-Cells in Antitumor Therapy: Isolation and Functional Testing of CD4<SUP>+</SUP>CD25<SUP>+</SUP> Regulatory T-Cel…

2004

Naturally occurring CD4+CD25+ T regulatory cells originate from the thymus and play a central role regarding the maintenance of peripheral tolerance by suppression of autoreactive T-cell populations. However, T regulatory cells can have beneficial as well as harmful effects. On the one hand, they prevent a variety of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases; but on the other hand, they concomitantly inhibit antitumor immune reactions by suppressing tumor-specific T-cell responses. Therefore, these ambivalent properties of T regulatory cells require detailed investigation especially with respect to a potential therapeutic exploitation of these cells. A prerequisite for such analyses is the isola…

Selected Secondary Plant Metabolites for Cancer Therapy

2015

Secondary plant metabolites reveal numerous biological activities making them attractive as resource for drug development of human diseases. As the majority of cancer drugs clinically established during the past half century is derived from nature, cancer researchers worldwide try to identify novel natural products as lead compounds for cancer therapy. Natural products are considered as promising cancer therapeutics, either as single agents or in combination protocols, to enhance the antitumor activity of additional therapeutic modalities. Most natural compounds exert pleotrophic effects and modulate various signal transduction pathways. A better understanding of the complex mechanisms of a…

Microcells Development and Endocytosis Ability Morphological and Quantitative Characterization in HeLa Cancer Cells

2008

Determination of endocytotic ability of cancer cells could improve tumor treatment results. The aim of this study was to investigate morphological aspects of development in HeLa (Henrietta Lacks cervical cancer cells) microcells and to quantitatively estimate the endocytotic capability of these cells.

Injectable Hydrogel for Synergetic Low Dose Radiotherapy, Chemodynamic Therapy and Photothermal Therapy

2021

Higher doses of radiotherapy (RT) are associated with resistance induction, therefore highly selective and controllable radiosensitizers are urgently needed. To address this issue, we developed a FeGA-based injectable hydrogel system (FH) that can be used in combination with low-dose radiation. Our FH can deliver FeGA directly to the tumor site via intratumoral injection, where it is a reservoir-based system to conserve FeGA. The photothermal properties of FeGA steadily dissolve FH under laser irradiation, and, simultaneously, FeGA reacts with a large amount of H2O2 in the cell to produce OH (Fenton reaction) which is highly toxic to mitochondria, rendering the cell inactive and reducing ra…

The Vascularization of Experimental and Human Primary Tumors: Comparative Morphometric and Morphologic Studies

1998

The importance of the blood vessel system in solid tumors has given rise to an increasing interest in this system as a direct target for tumor therapy, i.e. vascular targeting (Denekamp, 1984). Furthermore, its importance as a route for delivery of anticancer drugs (chemo- and immunotherapies) or photosensitizers (photodynamic laser therapy), as well as its modulatory influences on radiotherapy and hyperthermia — the former greatly depending on the amount of oxygen available, the latter on heat transfer — are evident. Numerous studies on the energy metabolism of solid tumors (Vaupel et al., 1987, 1989) have pointed out the functional importance of the blood vessel system and stress the need…

Macromolecular Prodrugs Based on Synthetic Polyaminoacids: Drug Delivery and Drug Targeting in Antitumor Therapy

2011

In the last twenty years a depth study on potential pharmaceutical applications of synthetic polymers at proteinlike structure as carrier for macromolecular prodrug production has been performed in academia and in industry. In particular α,β-poly(N-2-hydroxyethyl)-DL-aspartamide (PHEA), α,β-polyaspartylhydrazide (PAHy), poly(glutamic acid) (PGA), poly(aspartic acid) (PAA) and polylysine (PLL) have been extensively studied in this field. In the present review, the use of PHEA, PAHy, PGA as starting materials to prepare macromolecular prodrugs is reported and drug delivery and targeting aspects have been considered.

ENGINEERED NANOGELS FOR BIOLOGICAL DRUGS TRANSPORT

2009

Nowadays the nanocarrier strategy, aimed to rebuild the tumor therapy approach in a winning way, is growing very fast. This is in the direction to engender nanocarriers having synergistic action by the “biological drugs” transported, the capability to recognize specific targets and the molecular architecture that allows them to perform at the best their therapeutic functions. We are building engineered nanocarriers having different functions (control cell cycle, induce apoptosis, etc.) as well as the capability to recognize specific targets (tumor cells, angiogenic and/or sprouting endothelial cells); moreover, they must have also the ability to escape the host immunosystem, such that not t…