Background:Plasma is an ionised gas that is typically generated in high-temperature laboratory conditions. However, recent progress in atmospheric plasmas has led to the creation of cold plasmas with ion temperature close to room temperature.Methods:Both in-vitro and in-vivo studies revealed that cold plasmas selectively kill cancer cells.Results:We show that: (a) cold plasma application selectively eradicates cancer cells in vitro without damaging normal cells; and (b) significantly reduces tumour size in vivo. It is shown that reactive oxygen species metabolism and oxidative stress responsive genes are deregulated.Conclusion:The development of cold plasma tumour ablation has the potential of shifting the current paradigm of cancer treatment and enabling the transformation of cancer treatment technologies by utilisation of another state of matter.

Recent progress in atmospheric plasmas has led to the creation of cold plasmas with ion temperature close to room temperature. This paper outlines recent progress in understanding of cold plasma physics as well as application of cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) in cancer therapy. Varieties of novel plasma diagnostic techniques were developed recently in a quest to understand physics of CAP. It was established that the streamer head charge is about 108 electrons, the electrical field in the head vicinity is about 107 V/m, and the electron density of the streamer column is about 1019 m−3. Both in-vitro and in-vivo studies of CAP action on cancer were performed. It was shown that the cold plasma application selectively eradicates cancer cells in-vitro without damaging normal cells and significantly reduces tumor size in-vivo. Studies indicate that the mechanism of action of cold plasma on cancer cells is related to generation of reactive oxygen species with possible induction of the apoptosis pathway. It is also shown that the cancer cells are more susceptible to the effects of CAP because a greater percentage of cells are in the S phase of the cell cycle.

Plasma medicine is a relatively new field that grew from research in application of lowtemperature (or cold) atmospheric plasmas in bioengineering. One of the most promising applications of cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) is cancer therapy. Convincing evidence of CAP selectivity towards the cancer cells has been accumulated. This review summarizes the state of the art of this emerging field, presenting various aspects of CAP application in cancer such as the role of reactive species (reactive oxygen and nitrogen), cell cycle modification, in vivo application, CAP interaction with cancer cells in conjunction with nanoparticles, and computational oncology applied to CAP.

Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP), a technology based on quasi-neutral ionized gas at low temperatures, is currently being evaluated as a new highly selective alternative addition to existing cancer therapies. Here, we present a first attempt to identify the mechanism of CAP action. CAP induced a robust ~2-fold G2/M increase in two different types of cancer cells with different degrees of tumorigenicity. We hypothesize that the increased sensitivity of cancer cells to CAP treatment is caused by differences in the distribution of cancer cells and normal cells within the cell cycle. The expression of γH2A.X (pSer139), an oxidative stress reporter indicating S-phase damage, is enhanced specifically within CAP treated cells in the S phase of the cell cycle. Together with a significant decrease in EdU-incorporation after CAP, these data suggest that tumorigenic cancer cells are more susceptible to CAP treatment.