Plasma activated medium shows promise against synovial sarcoma

Plasma-activated medium (PAM) shows tumor-fighting effects against the rare form of cancer known as synovial sarcoma, an Osaka Metropolitan University-led research team has found.

The group irradiated a mammalian cell culture medium with non-thermal atmospheric-pressure plasma to produce PAM and conducted in vitro tests using human cells and in vivo tests using mice with this type of soft tissue sarcoma.

Graduate School of Medicine student Hana Yao, Associate Professor Hiromitsu Toyoda, and Professor Hiroaki Nakamura, and Graduate School of Engineering Professor Jun-Seok Oh were part of the team that verified the effects of PAM on synovial sarcoma.

Human synovial sarcoma cells exposed to PAM prepared with 5 minutes of plasma irradiation had only a 21% survival rate compared to the control. In mice with this form of cancer, daily injections of PAM around the tumor for four weeks resulted in the reduction of the tumor volume to approximately 46% and final tumor weight to about 59% compared to the control group.

"Not only do our results indicate that PAM has anticancer effects on synovial sarcoma at the cellular and organismal levels, but there also were no obvious side effects such as weight loss or poor appetite observed in the mice," stated Professor Toyoda. "We aim to further develop our studies using PAM and introduce a new treatment option for synovial sarcoma."

The results were published in Biomedicines.