Article Summary #5

Gravitz, L. Monitoring Cell Death Could Help Cancer Treatment. Technology Review. 01 Feb 2010.

It is obvious for oncologists to know that the sooner they can determine whether a treatment is unsuccessful, the sooner they can try and fix it into a new course of action. The bad part is that it usually takes two or more months to compare the before and after to determine if the tumor is shrinking. An Israeli company, Aposense, could have found a way to speed up this process; they have an imaging marker that when its used with PET scans, it indicates which cells are dying.

Apoptosis is the process by which cells commit suicide and is a vital mechanism in the body that picks out damaged or unhealthy cells. These cells that undergo apoptosis have a distinct characteristic that the profile of the membrane changes and the cell becomes more acidic, thus leaving the membrane jumbled. Aposense believes they found a way to let doctors image the cell death that lets them know if the treatment is working or not. This can happen a few days after treatment begins rather than the two months in the previous procedures. The tracer can be delivered to patients when they are in an inactive state, letting the acidic environment surround the apoptotic cells, causing the molecule to activate. The new process recognizes the dying cells by their altered membrane, binds to it, and works its way into the cell. The tracer is then linked to the imaging isotope fluoride to make it easy for PET scans to pick up the signal. The idea with this is that you can see if a patient is getting benefits from the radiation treatment, and quickly change to an alternative treatment if its not.