Basic study on the effect of ultrasound exposure upon suppression of cancer cell proliferation

摘要

Treatment of cancers has been studied intensively by using chemotherapeutic agents such as photosensitive hematoporphyrin, together with ultrasound exposure, or especially in recent years with use of ultrasound cavitation. Suppression of proliferation of cancer cells with ultrasound exposure has also been studied in our laboratory. An ultrasound illuminating system was constructed for experimental study on the effect of ultrasound exposure upon the suppression of proliferation of cancer cells and an ultrasound exposure experiment was performed on a culture of cancer cells of mouse T lymphoma (EL-4) in a flask. In this experiment, the cancer cells were exposed to ultrasound with the constructed illuminating system and the proliferation behavior of the cells after exposure was observed. The cells in the flask after exposure to ultrasound were cultured in a CO{sub}2 incubator and changing number of cancer cells was observed. The number of cancer cells did not change remarkably immediately after exposure and increase the number of cells was suppressed remarkably with the lapse of time during 24 hours after exposure. Longer exposure decreased more cancer cells. Apoptosis may contribute to this effect, thus giving a hope for controlling cancer cells.