By Cameron Chai
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