Cold Atmospheric Plasma as an Alternative Therapy for Cancer Treatment

Abstract

Although several cellular and immune based therapies are available, cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) is gaining importance due to its functional ability to accelerate and promote apoptosis of tumour cells. The ionized jet of plasma has been shown to selectively obliterate the tumour cells while leaving the normal healthy cells unaltered. This important property of CAP has been studied in vitro and in vivo. However, there are very few reports and scientific advancements to address the mechanism by which CAP induces cell death. The cellular and molecular mechanisms triggering the events have not been well understood. While changes in the redox potential may be a factor, the role of receptors, cell adhesion molecules, chemokines and cytokines and the apoptotic proteins and various downstream signalling targets are currently being studied. New findings have suggested that the CAP activated medium itself serves as a source for cell stress induced changes in redox potential. It is interesting that CAP may induce the activation of specific receptors, cytokines that may induce cell death. The field of biomarker discovery in combination with CAP may serve as therapeutics treatments for solid tumours and for treatments in cancer biology. Therefore, application of CAP for the purpose of human therapeutics in treatment for cancer serves as a new biomedical intervention that can replace-to-reduce the chemotherapeutic targets.