Nanotherapy: Treating deadly brain tumors by delivering big radiation with tiny tools
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 16:30
in Health & Medicine
For the past 40 years, radiation has been used to treat deadly brain tumors. But beams of radiation still must pass through healthy brain tissue to reach the tumor, and large amounts cause serious side effects. Medical researchers can now deliver nanoparticle radiation directly to the tumor and keep it there, dosing the tumor itself with much higher levels of radiation but sparing a much greater area of brain tissue.