Treatment of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Cells with the Canady Cold Plasma Conversion System: Preliminary Results
and is the second leading cause of cancer death among women after lung cancer [1]. Triple-negative
breast cancer refers to the breast cancer phenotype which has an absence or low level expression of
estrogen, progesterone, and HER2 receptors [2]. It is known for its poor clinical outcome and lack
of effective targeted therapy because women with triple-negative breast cancer do not benefit from
endocrine therapy or trastuzumab. Chemotherapy is currently the mainstay of systemic medical
treatment [3]. Patients with triple-negative disease have a lower three-year survival rate following
chemotherapy than patients with breast cancers of other subtypes [4].
Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) has been extensively studied for its biomedical use in various
fields such as surface decontamination [5], wound healing [6,7], dental treatment [8], allergen
destruction [9], HIV virus treatment [10] and among others [11]. In particular, the research of CAP as
a potential oncotherapeutic approach has thrived over the past decade and the mechanism is been
increasingly understood [12–16]. It is widely reported that CAP deactivated more than 20 types
of cancer in vitro by inducing apoptosis [17–19], cell cycle arrest [20–22], endoplasmic reticulum
stress [23,24] and DNA damage [25–27]. CAP has also been shown to significantly reduce tumor
volume in an in vivo murine model following s phase cell cycle arrest and apoptosis [28].