Silica Nanoparticles Containing Gadolinium Complex as Potential Alternative to Anticancer Radiotherapy

Today, cancer represents one of the main causes of death worldwide, making it a formidable challenge for all scientific areas that seek new therapeutic approaches for its cure. As a therapeutic approach, radiotherapy, widely used in treating various types of tumors, acts by not discriminating healthy cells from tumor cells. Seeking to minimize these effects, nanostructured carriers of radioisotopes have been studied with the aim of improving the specificity of action of ionizing radiation, delivering and retaining adequate amounts of radioactive isotopes within tumor cells, leading them to death. In the present work, silica nanoparticles were prepared in order to evaluate their capacity to act as a nanocarrier of the Gd-159-DTPA-BMA radioactive complex, which can selectively deliver high radiation doses to tumors. Furthermore, this formulation seeks to prevent nontarget tissues from receiving excessive amounts of radiation, acting as a new potential alternative to conventional radiotherapy, in which a large dose of radiation is delivered to nontarget tissues, causing harm to healthy surrounding tissues.