Functionalized radioactive gold nanoparticles in tumor therapy

The development of new treatment modalities that offer clinicians the ability to reduce sizes of tumor prior to surgical resection or to achieve complete ablation without surgery would be a significant medical breakthrough in the overall care and treatment of prostate cancer patients. The goal of our investigation is aimed at validating the hypothesis that Gum Arabic-functionalized radioactive gold nanoparticles (GA-198AuNP) have high affinity toward tumor vasculature. We hypothesized further that intratumoral delivery of the GA-198AuNP agent within prostate tumor will allow optimal therapeutic payload that will significantly or completely ablate tumor without side effects, in patients with hormone refractory prostate cancer. In order to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of this new nanoceutical, GA-198AuNP was produced by stabilization of radioactive gold nanoparticles (198Au) with the FDA-approved glycoprotein, GA. This review will describe basic and clinical translation studies toward realization of the therapeutic potential and myriad of clinical applications of GA-198AuNP agent in treating prostate and various solid tumors in human cancer patients. WIREs Nanomed Nanobiotechnol 2012, 4:4251. doi: 10.1002/wnan.161