Nano-sheets of graphene oxide enhances the combined effect of hyperthermia and radiation treatment in pancreatic cancer cell lines.

Background: Pancreatic cancer leaves little hope for survival among patients. This is due to its cancerous cell resistance to radiation and chemicals. Objective: Synergistic effect between three modalities of pancreatic cancer treatment is investigated. These are radiation therapy, Hyperthermia and graphene oxide nanosheets. The aim is to overcome resistance of pancreatic cancer cell against radiation therapy. Methods: Cancerous cell lines were treated by each one of three modalities separately. Other samples were treated with various combinations of these modalities. Hyperthermia accomplished with placing cell lines for 15 min in 42°C. In the course of radiation therapy, the cancerous cells were irradiated by 6 MV Linac for two cases of 2 Gy and 3 Gy. The cell line viability was readout by MTT assay in 24 hours and 48 hours after treatment. Results: In single modality treatment it was shown that 24h after the treatment, the group treated by RT 3 Gy had the highest cell killing result. Following up the result in 48h readout, hyperthermia and 3 Gy radiotherapy had similar result. In double modality treatment, for both 24h and 48h viability readout, the group graphene-oxide plus 2 Gy radiotherapy showed cell survival amounting to 69% and 43% respectively being the lowest cell survival among all double combinations. Conclusion: In triple modality treatment, the cell viability for 24h showed no significant improvement but in 48h the hyperthermia plus Graphene-oxide and 3 Gy radiotherapy had very low cell viability. Significant sensitizing effect for GO when combined by radiation therapy was observed.