Using "nuclear weapons" to treat cancer

Cancer treatments using chemotherapy and radiotherapy often come with the risk of healthy cells being "collaterally affected" while destroying diseased cells.

Los Alamos National Laboratory has been researching the application of nuclear knowledge in cancer treatment - Photo:

But American scientists have discovered the selective therapeutic potential of radioactive actinium.

Nestled among the mountains and plains of northern New Mexico, the Los Alamos National Laboratory is little known.

Once simply named Project Y, this was America's secret atomic bomb research laboratory.

According to NBC News, after 70 years of operation, scientists here continue to work related to nuclear weapons, but they are also researching the application of that knowledge in the field of cancer treatment.

Unique capabilities of the ac-225

Physicist Eva Birnbaum is one of the experts at Los Alamos. She is studying actinium 225 (or ac-225), a radioactive isotope that emits alpha particles and is used in radiation therapy.

Researchers consider this a unique radiation therapy, because ac-225 has the ability to destroy cancer cells without damaging other healthy cells.

The alpha particles emitted by ac-225 are relatively weak, so they do not cause damage in areas not in the treatment zone.

With a half-life of 10 days, meaning that half of the substance will decay after 10 days, ac-225 radiation will not last long in the patient's body.

“I think we have great hope that this will have a significant impact on a number of cancers that currently do not have effective treatments,” says Birnbaum.

Clinical trials have shown that ac-225 has the potential to treat leukemia, melanoma, and several other cancers, including breast and prostate cancer.

Difficult to produce

The problem that worries cancer experts more, however, is not how promising actinium is in treating cancer, but how to get enough of the precious radioactive substance to use in clinical trials.

AC-225 supply is very limited because it is difficult to produce.

Scientists at Los Alamos can use particle accelerators used in nuclear weapons or electricity generation to create ac-225 from another radioactive substance, thorium.

“The goal of this project is to produce 50 times the amount of ac-225 that is currently available,” explains Kevin John, ac-225 production project manager at the Los Alamos Research Center.

To use ac-225 to treat cancer, scientists must attach the radioactive isotope to an antibody - a protein in the human immune system - that has been structured in the laboratory to be able to track down cancer cells.

When injected into the body, this antibody will reside in the tumor that needs to be attacked and destroy the cancer cells there.

“This is a more focused radiation therapy,” said Joseph Jurcic, a hematologist and oncologist at Columbia University Medical Center. “It’s more precise and helps kill just the cancer cells.”

Mr. Jurcic has conducted some preliminary clinical trials with this method.

He is also a member of the board of directors of Actinium Pharmaceuticals, which is researching and developing cancer therapy using the radioactive isotope ac-225.

According to Mr. Jurcic, treating cancer with ac-225 is effective for people with small tumors or tumors that have spread. However, more research is still needed before its effectiveness is recognized.

Drug prices are skyrocketing.

The French Anti-Cancer League has denounced the current price of cancer drugs as "unfair" and "sky-high".

On December 16, according to Le Figaro newspaper, the federation said that such excessively high drug prices not only threaten the health care system but also cause injustice between rich and poor patients.

Professor Jean-Paul Vernant, of Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, cited the following example: “In 2004, cancer drugs only reached 24 billion USD in sales; by 2008, it had increased to 40 billion USD and by 2014, it had reached 80 billion USD out of a total of 650 billion USD in drug sales on the world market.”

He predicts that if nothing is done, by 2020, cancer drugs will cost humanity $155 billion, doubling in six years.

The reason is explained that pharmaceutical companies are now looking for quick profits. According to Professor Vernant, a drug was previously formulated to achieve a return on investment and profit in 70,000 cancer cases.

Now the drug is being formulated in smaller batches with “more tailored” advertising, so the pharmaceutical company wants to recoup its investment and make a profit on a drug that treats just 5,000 patients.

Pharmaceutical companies of course also countered, saying that they cannot arbitrarily set drug prices, but are managed by authorities.

In addition, high drug prices due to failures in research and development are very high, causing high investment costs and being included in the price of successful products.

According to Soha