Microscopic particles that are used to identify counterfeit money could be used to detect cancer, scientists said today.
Gold-silica nanoparticles, which are embedded in currencies, scatter light in unique patterns called Raman spectra.
But scientists at Cambridge University, England, and Stanford University, California, USA, have co-opted the nanoparticles in bioimaging experiments to detect colorectal cancer.
Writing in the journal Science Translational Medicine, published by AAAS, Dr Sanjiv Gambhir and colleagues looked at the effects of administering gold-silica nanoparticles directly into the intestine and by injection into veins of mice and found the method was safe.
Venous injection caused the nanoparticles to seep into the liver, spleen and bone marrow; but if put directly into the intestine the nanoparticles remained localised.
The team is now working on studying the safety of gold-silica nanoparticles in dogs.
"These nanoparticles’ lack of toxicity in mice is a good sign that they’ll behave well in humans," said Dr Gambhir, professor of radiology.
"Early detection of any cancer, including colorectal cancer, markedly improves survival," said Gambhir. "But colonoscopy relies on the human eye. So this screening tool, while extremely useful, still misses many cancer lesions such as those that are too tiny, obscure or flat to be noticed."
Doctors can see larger polyps during an endoscopy, but they often miss small or flat polyps. They hope that with the imaging enabled by gold-silica nanoparticles, abnormal tissue growth can be detected early on.
It is hoped in the future that patients will be able to drink the gold nanoparticles, which will settle in the stomach, travel into the bowel and latch onto cancer cells, allowing for real-time detection and diagnosis during an endoscopy.
The Fate and Toxicity of Raman-Active Silica-Gold Nanoparticles in Mice, by A.S. Thakor; R. Luong; R. Paulmurugan; F.I. Lin; P. Kempen; C. Zavaleta; P. Chu; T.F. Massoud; R. Sinclair; S.S. Gambhir at Stanford University in Stanford, CA; A.S. Thakor; T.F. Massoud at University of Cambridge in Cambridge, UK.
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