Hisataka Kobayashi (right), senior investigator at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, shakes hands with Rakuten Group Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Hiroshi Mikitani
A new cancer treatment that uses light to target and kill only cancer cells, and is believed to have few side effects, has entered into use in Japan, in a world first.
In the treatment, called photoimmunotherapy, antibodies that bind only to cancer cells are administered to patients.
Harmless by themselves, the antibodies, when illuminated for several minutes with near-infrared lasers, trigger a chemical reaction that “destroy only cancer cells with pinpoint accuracy,” according to Hisataka Kobayashi, senior investigator at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, who developed the method.
Continue reading… “Japan launches new cancer treatment using special antibodies and beams of light”