Investigation of Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jet Effects on the Treatment of Glioblastoma Using PET Imaging

Cold Atmospheric Plasma (CAP) has a wide application in medicine that has many biological effects on bacterial, fungal, yeast, and mammalian cells, particularly cancer cells. In this study, the in-vivo anti-tumor effect of an Atmospheric Pressure Jet Plasma (APJP) source is investigated.

The Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) tumoric cells have been implanted in the rat brains. Then, cancerian cells are treated by direct CAP and the Temozolomide (TMZ) drug. Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging method is used for evaluating the tumor regions.

The PET imaging results showed that the GBM cell has a significant reduction in direct plasma treatment and TMZ drug just. This reduction can be clearly observed just five days after treatment. The calculated Brain to the Background Ratio (BBR) shows that the cancer cells in the plasma method are halved after five days. This amount is comparable to the TMZ method that makes two times decreasing in the cancer cells.

The plasma method can be used as an effective method in treating and removing the GBM cells. Also, CAP has fewer side effects than chemical methods.