Once again, here we are, learning new things about applications of the nanotechnology. This time, the topic is the treatment of cancer using nanotechnology. Exciting, isn't it? Let's start.

Nanotechnology in the medicine

Assuming that you know what nanotechnology and nanomedicine is, let's just make a brief summary of what was discussed on my last posts.
Nanotechnology is referred to the size of the technology, so when we talk about nanomedicine, we're just talking about using nano-sized materials for medical treatments. For example, the use of nano drug-carriers or nano-sensors.
In this case, we're going to talk about how nanotechnology can be useful to treat some carcinogenic diseases.

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Problems with actual treatments of cancer

The first thing we need to ask is: why we need to use nanotechnology? Why don't we keep using the current treatments against cancer?
Well, let me tell you that there are several problems with the current medicine.

First of all, when you take a medicine (any of them) most of its composition doesn't affect to you. Actually, we throw away almost 75% of the medicine we're taking. So it's only that 25% remaining what makes effect. What does this mean? We spend **too much** medicine only to end up absorbing a small amount of it.

On the other hand, the medicine is not smart. It doesn't know where to go when it is on our body, and I think this is one of the biggest problem that nanotechnology can solve.
Besides that, medicine can not differentiate between healthy tissue and tissue damaged by a disease, so when we undergo cancer treatment, actually both healthy and diseased tissue is being destroyed. And this is another big problem of current treatments. As we destroy healthy tissue, horrible side effects begin to appear. Among them we find anemia, hair loss, pain, nausea and vomiting, insomnia...

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Benefits of Nanotechnology against cancer

How can we use the right amount of medicine?

If you've read my last posts, you'll know about the existence of nano-bots. Well, the Chinese University of Hong Kong published a paper explaining the possibility of developing biodegradable nano-bots. And this means that we can just put the right amount of medicine inside one of this nano-bots and introduce it to a sick person. Then, using magnetic fields the nano-bot can be guided to the affected area. Finally, the nano-bot would release the medicine exactly where the disease is and the biodegradation would begin after the bot completed its mission.
Even though this technology exists and by now it has been just used in rats, the team that published the article ensures that there's still a lot to investigate and advance.

How do the nano-bots know where to go?

As we said, the current medicine doesn't know where is the disease, so we need to develop bots capable of reach the affected area without losing the load on the way. This will be possible because the nano-bots will have incorporated movement mechanisms, like cilium (limbs shaped like small hairs) able to vibrate or even small spinning propellers. This is about how they move, but the nano-bots need a guide. The bots will be able to find the way by using external magnetic fields, so that properly applied can be taken to the area where the cancer is.

Will we be able to know which areas are affected?

If nanotechnology continues to develop at the rate that it is developing right now, we will have nano-sensor so smart that they will be able to detect diseases like cancer. These nano-sensors will circulate monitoring various areas, so when an irregularity is detected, we can know that it is possible that there is some disease. This will be a breakthrough, since we will be able to detect cancer much earlier. The other good part of this is, as we know what is the affected area, we will not need to destroy healthy tissue when releasing the medication, so we will reduce the side effects much more noticeably.

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References

Information:
[1] https://www.cancer.gov/espanol/cancer/tratamiento/efectos-secundarios
[2] http://www.areatecnologia.com/nuevas-tecnologias/nanobots.html
[3] https://www.theengineer.co.uk/biodegradable-nanobots-cancer/
[4] https://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/abs/10.2217/nnm.15.180