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Recent Progress of Gold Nanomaterials in Cancer Therapy

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Handbook of Nanomaterials and Nanocomposites for Energy and Environmental Applications

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Abstract

In radiotherapy, ionizing radiation causes deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) damage in cancer cells, so that the cancer can be controlled by terminating the reproduction of these affected cells. DNA is a biological molecule in nanometer scale in a living cell necessary for cell reproduction. Adding heavy-atom nanomaterial as radiosensitizer to the cancer cells can enhance the DNA damage in the cells, as the irradiated cancer cells can be more easily detected by medical imaging. This is because the addition of heavy-atom nanomaterial in the cancer cell increases the compositional atomic number of the cell, resulting in a photoelectric interaction enhancement with increased secondary electron yield for energy deposition. The gold nanomaterial addition to the cancer tumour benefits radiotherapy that produces a highly conformal dose distribution covering the cancer target, while sparing the surrounding critical organs. We use Monte Carlo simulation to study the nanodosimetry of DNA, guiding us to evaluate the effectiveness of nanomaterials such as gold nanoparticles transported to the cancer cells. Monte Carlo simulation is a mathematical method to model the interaction between the DNA and radiation beam. In this chapter, we review the basic concept and recent progress of Monte Carlo simulation used in predicting the dose and imaging contrast enhancement in gold nanoparticle-enhanced radiotherapy. We also review the dose and imaging contrast enhancement ratios among different nanoparticle materials using different photon beam energies in the kilovoltage range. In gold nanoparticle-enhanced radiotherapy using the flattening-filter-free and flattening-filter photon beams, we examine the recent results of dose and imaging contrast enhancement between these photon beams using Monte Carlo simulation.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    James Chun Lam Chow

  2. Radiation Medicine Program, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada

    James Chun Lam Chow

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  1. James Chun Lam Chow
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Correspondence to James Chun Lam Chow .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry Science, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, San Nicolás de los Garza, Mexico

    Oxana Vasilievna Kharissova

  2. Instituto de Ingeniería Civil, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, San Nicolás de los Garza, Nuevo León, Mexico

    Leticia Myriam Torres-Martínez

  3. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, San Nicolás de los Garza, Mexico

    Boris Ildusovich Kharisov

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Chow, J.C.L. (2021). Recent Progress of Gold Nanomaterials in Cancer Therapy. In: Kharissova, O.V., Torres-Martínez, L.M., Kharisov, B.I. (eds) Handbook of Nanomaterials and Nanocomposites for Energy and Environmental Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36268-3_2

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