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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Jul 3.
Published in final edited form as: Sci Am. 2009 Feb;300(2):44–51. doi: 10.1038/scientificamerican0209-44

ON TARGET.

ON TARGET

An experimental nanotherapy, IT-101, encapsulates a chemotherapy drug, camptothecin, inside a nanoparticle designed to circulate for an extended period in the bloodstream and to accumulate in tumors. In a human safety trial, evidence of the treatment’s efficacy was seen in some patients with advanced cancers. In the CT scans below, views of a patient’s midsection show a large lung tumor (top, circled) before treatment with IT-101 and after six months of treatment (bottom), when the tumor had shrunk considerably.