MagForce, which is a holding company of NanoStart, and specialising in medical technology with specific interest in oncology has announced that it will use its proprietary NanoTherm therapy to treat patients with recurrent glioblastoma.
As the first step towards this, the company completed the first phase of treatment for a patient with the disease based on an individual patient agreement at the University Giessen. The remaining treatment phases such as activation of nanoparticles and radiation therapy were carried out at the Charite University Medical Centre in Berlin. The costs of the treatment will be covered by a German state owned insurance company.
The NanoTherm therapy, which also includes the NanoPlan and NanoActivator therapies uses heat to activate magnetic nanoparticles within the tumour. The magnetic nanoparticles measuring 15 nm in diameter are made up of a core of iron oxide and a coating of aminosaline. This coating enables the magnetic nanoparticles to fuse with each other once they are injected into the tumour. A magnetic field then activates the nanoparticles and changes their polarity by 100,000/s and this in turn generates heat. The cancerous cells are either destroyed or are made more sensitive to radiotherapy and chemotherapy based on the length and the temperature of the NanoTherm therapy.
According to Dr. Peter Heinrich, CEO of MagForce, the company intends to develop treatments for various other kinds of solid tumours through this method of therapy in collaboration with German and international experts.
Source: http://www.nanostart.de