Plasmonic nanophotothermal therapy: Destruction of 500 mm³ subcutaneous human basal cell carcinoma with gold nanoparticles and near infrared laser

Abstract

SignificanceMultilesional basal cell carcinoma (BCC) are spread on sun exposed skin areas, including arms, face and back. The first‐line treatment remains the surgical resection or Mohs surgery. Despite its high complexity, Mohs surgery is well practiced in USA and Germany and presents very good results both in esthetic and in carcinology point of view.Large lesions more than 2 cm remain challenging to remove by topical cream used in photodynamic therapy (PDT). If these larger lesions are not treated in less than 1 month, they could grow deeply in the skin, thus enhancing the risk of reoccurrence and the severity of the disease. Despite this model herein studied, that is non melanoma skin cancer is a good prognostic cancer, the therapy aims to be applied to more aggressive melanoma skin cancers.AimTotal regression of large cutaneous lesions less than 1 month with no reoccurrence.ApproachTumor induction on murine model bearing a 500 mm3 subcutaneous lesion. Increasing dose of gold nanoparticles at fixed initial concentration C0 = 0.3 mg/mL, infused into the tumor then exposition of the region of interest to NIR medical laser to assess the therapy. One or two intratumoral administration(s) were compared to surgery and control, that is no treatment, laser alone or nanoparticles alone.ResultsGold nanoparticles alone or the NIR laser alone did not induce the tumor regression. The combination of laser and nanoparticles called plasmonic nanophotothermal therapy induced apoptosis. Derma and hypoderm do not show any visible gold nanoparticles and demonstrated a good cicatrization process.ConclusionPlasmonic nanophotothermal therapy using two doses of gold nanoparticles was the only protocol that proved its efficacy on large lesions in 14 days, that is 500 mm3 on a murine model bearing human basal cell carcinoma.