Diamond Nano-Particles Make Dramatic Leap Forward For Cancer Treatment

According to this latest study, a metastatic cancer's resistance to chemotherapy contributes to 90% of treatment failures. Overcoming a cancer's ability to resist chemotherapy would dramatically increase survive rates. 

Enter nano-diamonds.

In earlier Logic-Cool posts, we’ve highlighted attempts to use nano-particles to treat cancer…in particular gold nano-particles. Now, diamond nano-particles have joined the fight.

This time, the effects are a little different. The diamond nano-particles enable chemotherapy to stay inside tumors for longer periods of time. In drug-resistant cancer, the body’s normal response to expel the drugs prevents chemotherapy treatment from having enough time to work on the disease.

Scientists found that diamond nano-particles allow chemotherapy drugs to stay inside the body 10 times longer. In addition, the drugs remained inside the tumors longer as well. The study suggests that diamond nano-particulars will enable them to substantially reduce the chemotherapy dosage required for treatment, lessening the harmful side effects.

"Nanodiamonds have excellent biocompatibility, and the process of formulating nanodiamond-drug complexes is very inexpensive," said Edward K. Chow, a postdoctoral fellow with the G.W. Hooper Foundation and the University of California, San Francisco, and first author of the paper. "Nanodiamonds possess numerous hallmarks of an ideal drug delivery system and are promising platforms for advancing cancer therapy."

Diamond Nano-Particles