Killing adherent and nonadherent cancer cells with the plasma pencil

Abstract

The application of low temperature plasmas in biology and medicine may lead to a paradigm shift in the way various diseases can be treated without serious side effects. Low temperature plasmas generated in gas mixtures that contain oxygen or air produce several chemically reactive species that have important biological implications when they interact with eukaryotic or prokaryotic cells. Here, a review of the effects of low temperature plasma generated by the plasma pencil on different cancerous cells is presented. Results indicate that plasma consistently shows a delayed killing effect that is dose dependent. In addition, there is some evidence that apoptosis is one of the pathways that leads to the death of the cells, indicating that plasma initiates cell signaling pathways.

Cell migration and adhesion of a human melanoma cell line is decreased by cold plasma treatment

“…Alternatively, plasma treatment could have reduced the melanoma cells' ability to grow without the need of cell-cell contact and freely within the agar. This result is in agreement with recently published data showing inhibitory effects of plasma on proliferation of cancer cells [36]. To determine whether plasma treatment was sufficient to induce cell contraction and membrane blebbing, we acquired images of plasma-treated cells two hours after exposure and analyzed the cell morphology by fluorescence microscopy.…”

Plasma Medicine: A Brief Introduction

“…These early achievements raised great interest and paved the way for many laboratories from around the world to investigate the biomedical applications of LTP and by the end of the first decade of the 2000s, a global scientific community was established around such research activities. The field is today known by the term plasma medicine, and in the last few years a number of extensive reviews and tutorials were published (see Refs [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] and references therein) as well as a few books [19][20][21].…”

In-situ UV Absorption Spectroscopy for Monitoring Transport of Plasma Reactive Species through Agarose as Surrogate for Tissue

“…The non-thermal nature of the APPJ source enables it to deliver therapeutic doses of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) to the biological target without inducing thermal damage. Plasma generated RONS are implicated in a variety of cellular signaling processes [5], disinfection [6] and destruction of adherent and non-adherent cancer cells [7].…”