Effect of photo–electron therapy on human neoplastic cells

Background: Cancer is a complex disease with high rate of mortality. At present, Radiation therapy is one of the most common procedures to overcome this situation. The deficiency of conventional method is the lack of fatal dose transmission into the malignant tissue. Hence, uncertain dose may cause regeneration of cancer cells, and relapse of the disease and invasion of the cancer cells to the other organs. Photo–electron therapy is a new cancer therapeutic approach which is based on the delivering of necrotic dose into the tumor however, no damage is applied on normal surrounding tissue. The aim of this study was to sketch out in vitro human cancer cells' survival curve, either by the use of photo-electron therapy or conventional radiotherapy and compare the efficacy of the two methods regarding their treatment benefit rate. Materials and Methods: The method of investigation was descriptive. The measurement was based on sketching out survival curve of cancer cells affected by either photo-electron therapy or conventional radiation therapy methods. Six groups of various human cancer cells were selected. Each specimen was studied by dividing it into four groups. Meanwhile, for any specific kind of cancer cells, the experiment was repeated ten times using various amount of incident beam energy, and the average of all ten repeats was used for sketching out the survival curves. The groups were as follows: Group (1) – Certain range of X-Ray energy, from a minimum up to a maximum of 400 centi Gy was applied to cancer cells via a photo-electron therapy method in ten separate time period. Group (2) –The same range of X-ray energy was applied to cancer cells by conventional method. Group (3) – Effective substance (means specific drug for photo-electron therapy) only. Group (4)– Control group. Finding: Less than 1% of Group 1 cells (Photo-Electron therapy treatment) were survived. 78% of Group 2 cells (conventional radiotherapy treatment) were survived which was almost equivalent to control group. In group 3 (unexposed cells) about 78% of the cells were survived. In group 4 (control group) about 78% of cells were survived. Conclusion: The effective substance is actually a drug which has specifically been used for photo-electron therapy. Exposing X-Ray beam energy was 250 kVp, hence, the cells were irradiated by 400 Centi Gy which is relatively low in present radiotherapy.