Cold atmospheric plasma, a novel promising anti-cancer treatment modality

// Dayun Yan 1 , Jonathan H. Sherman 2 and Michael Keidar 1 1 Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, The George Washington University, NW, Washington, DC, USA 2 Neurological Surgery, The George Washington University, NW, Washington, DC, USA Correspondence to: Dayun Yan, email: // Michael Keidar, email: // Keywords : cold plasma, cancer treatment, reactive species, selectivity Received : September 14, 2016 Accepted : October 29, 2016 Published : November 11, 2016 Abstract Over the past decade, cold atmospheric plasma (CAP), a near room temperature ionized gas has shown its promising application in cancer therapy. Two CAP devices, namely dielectric barrier discharge and plasma jet, show significantly anti-cancer capacity over dozens of cancer cell lines in vitro and several subcutaneous xenograft tumors in vivo. In contrast to conventional anti-cancer approaches and drugs, CAP is a selective anti-cancer treatment modality. Thus far establishing the chemical and molecular mechanism of the anti-cancer capacity of CAP is far from complete. In this review, we provide a comprehensive introduction of the basics of CAP, state of the art research in this field, the primary challenges, and future directions to cancer biologists.