Gold Nanoshell Mediated Heating of Brain Tumors

Primary brain tumors are treated surgically or with stereotactic radiation but often residual positive margins lead to recurrence. While these approaches have success, recurrences have more limited options. These approaches also cause serious functional impairment, and treatment of a recurrent tumor in a previously irradiated or post-surgical fibrosed field is a difficult problem [1]. A controlled minimally invasive alternative is the proposed treatment of nanoshell mediated heating with intratumoral fiber placement to overcome the light penetration limitation of surface illumination.Copyright © 2010 by ASME