The side effects of a prominent platinum-based chemotherapy drug could be greatly reduced through a process of 'super-sizing', new research has suggested.

Cisplatin is well known for its ability to ruin the DNA of tumour cells in lung, ovarian or breast cancer patients, but it can also cause serious damage to the kidneys, which receive plenty of the compound already through filtering blood.

However, a team of researchers from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology believe they have found a solution to the problem.

Lead scientist Shiladitya Sengupta revealed that cisplatin can be packaged into nanoparticles which are too big to enter the kidneys, thus blocking the side effects and paving the way for higher doses of the drug.

"We could give so much more cisplatin than is now possible. You could wipe out the tumour by carpet-bombing it," he said.

Tumours in mice were tested with the new cisplatin nanoparticle and the team found that they shrank to half the size of those treated with the compound in the traditional manner.

The findings of the research appear in the June edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Cisplatin was the first member of a class of anti-cancer drugs which now also includes carboplatin and oxaliplatin.

Source:

Super-sizing a cancer drug minimizes side effects (28/07/10)

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