Arsenic As An Antibody - Whoa!
Its simply amazing what things end up being useful medical tools, and the use of arsenic seems like a real stretch, but it turns out that it isnt at all. It seems the poisonous substance has the chance of becoming a very important tool in cancer identification and research for treatments.
Arsenic is shown to be linked to a drug that binds to blood vessels of cancerous tumors, which in turns provides an imaging agent that could allow doctors to one day identify unreachable tumor and monitor cancers response to therapy. Researchers say that this is the first time that arsenic has been used to label antibodies for the detection of tumors. The name of the antibody is bavituximab, and its one that concentrates on specific molecular targets in the blood vessels that feed tumors. The antibody is now being tested in trials to treat solid tumor cancers in combination with chemo. Poor old arsenic was used for centuries as a poison, but now it is found that a tiny amount - one-millionth of that needed to poison anyone - turns out to be a big benefit. Who knew!
When the arsenic antibody is injected into the body, it seems to target tumor areas and create hot spots which are them more easy for doctors to recognize. The arsenic creates a certain amount of radioactive type level and allows medical imagery to more easily be caught on data. And the good news is that unlike other antibodies, the arsenic doesnt seem to get trapped in the liver where it might do damage.
Scientists are hopeful that good old arsenic will be one of the tools that enables them to start seeing tumors that havent been visible using other imaging techniques.
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