Neuroblastoma (NB) is a common type of cancer found mostly in infants and arising from the immature neural crest cells of the sympathetic nervous system. Using laser trapping (LT) technique, the present work contributes to advancing radiotherapy (RT), a leading treatment method for cancer. A single, 2-cells, 3-cells, 4-cells, and 5-cells were trapped using the high-intensity gradient infrared laser at 1064 nm and allowed to become ionized. In this work, a systematic study of Threshold Ionization Energy (TIE) and Threshold Radiation Dose (TRD) versus mass for both single and multi-cell ionization using laser trapping (LT) techniques on NB is presented. The results show that TIE increased as the mass of cells increased, meanwhile TRD decreased with the increase of cell mass. We observed an inverse correlation between TRD and cell mass. We demonstrate how to compute the maximum radiation dosage for cell death using the LT technique. Results show a possible blueprint for computing the TRD in vivo. The use of multiple cell ionization to determine radiation dosage along with better data accuracy concerning the tumor size and density will have profound implications for radiation dosimetry. The diminution in TRD becomes more significant in multiple cell ionization as we see in TRD vs the number of cells entering the trap. This is due to the chain effect generated by radiation and the absorption by water molecules at 1064 nm. This result provides us with better insight into the optimization of the therapeutic ratio.

We used laser trapping to study the effects of suffruticosol B on lung cancer cells. Physical and mechanical changes were found to be statistically significant, with a 63.97% increase over untreated cells and a 79.57% increase over untreated cells after treatment for 3 or 6 h, respectively. The treatment affected the internal structure of the cells, with changes in their elastic properties. The cellular responses showed that treatment with suffruticosol B resulted in the decreased proliferation and invasion of cancer cells. These results suggest that the treatment may be useful in preventing or treating lung cancer.

The aim of our study was to use laser trapping technique to evaluate the radiation sensitivity of cancer cells, both untreated and chemo-treated. We focused on a specific human breast tumor cell line, called BT20, that was treated with an antitumor compound known as 2-Dodecyl-6-methoxycyclohexa-2, 5-diene-1, 4-dione. We investigated an untreated control group, as well as two groups of BT20 cells that were subjected to different treatment durations. We utilized a high-power infrared laser (at 1064 nm) trap to determine the absorbed threshold ionization energy (TIE) and threshold radiation dose (TRD) for single and multiple cells trapping and ionization. We performed statistical analyses, including descriptive and one-way ANOVA, on the results. We also analyzed the relationship between TIE and TRD to the mass of the individual cells for different hours of treatment, in comparison to the control group. Our findings revealed that both TIE and TRD decreased as treatment duration increased. However, the TRD decreased with mass irrespective of the treatment. Moreover, our analyses consistently showed the same behavior of TRD for single vs. multiple cell ionizations within each group, regardless of treatment. In addition, we conducted a comparative analysis on the effects of radiation dosage in BT20, 4T1 breast cancer, and N2a neuroblastoma cell lines, and discovered that the TRD decreased in mass across all three cell lines.