Application of monochromatic keV X-ray source to X-ray drug delivery system

X-ray Drug Delivery System (DDS) enhances accumulation of anti-cancer drug or contrast agent by surrounding it with polymer and Enhanced Penetration and Retention (EPR) effect. DDS uses advanced nano-scaled polymers that contain and deliver drug or contrast agent to cancers without side effects. Several X-ray DDSs pose high-Z atoms such as gold to absorb X-rays effectively and used as contrast agent for inspection. Moreover, they have radiation enhancement effect by emission of Auger electron and successive characteristic X-rays. The enhancement factor of gold is more than five. This could be used even for therapy. This new modality must be very important for inspection and therapy of deep cancers. We are making use of our X-band Compton scattering monochromatic keV X-ray source for the inspection. Numerical simulation on monochromatic X-ray CT for possible concentration of gold-colloid DDS considering the X-ray property from the source was done. Enough visibility was confirmed. Furthermore, in vitro experiment analyzed its toxic effect to cells by the Alkaline comet assay and fluorescent immunostaining method for single and double strand breaks of DNA. Availability of clear imaging for the inspection has been confirmed by the numerical simulation and the in-vitro evaluation of the therapy effect is under way.