Cold Atmospheric Plasma Jet Diagnostic for Tumour Growth Control and Bacteria Inactivation

Bone cancer incidence is on the rise in Canada, and treatments for these tumors rely on heavy doses of chemotherapeutic agents and invasive surgical procedures, which usually extend onto healthy tissue. The introduction of a cold plasma treatment promises to be a novel therapy to aid surgical intervention. While empirical plasma medicine shows promising results, the reaction mechanism between plasma and tissues and proper treatment dosage are still unknown at large. We therefore propose a plasma-bio interaction platform which combines a 3D-bioprinted tissue model to an automated cold plasma source as a controled way to study plasma tumor interaction in a realistic tissue model. To ensure biocompatibility, highly sensitive diagnostic techniques are necessary. With the thermo-optic effect on a fibre Bragg grating, gas temperature measurements were made. This technique, coupled to the plasma jet, brings a novel approach for temperature characterization. It accurately shows its capability to attain a maximum temperature of 40 °C while interacting with a dielectric surface. Similarly, spatially and time resolved colorimetric assays for nitrite and hydrogen peroxide detection have confirmed that these long-lived species can be tailored through the electric pulse duration, the distance and the duration of treatment. These results, combined with promising 2D in vitro treatment of MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell line, show great potential toward tailoring of the plasma for personalized medicine.