the impacts of prepared plasma-activated medium (pam) combined with doxorubicin on the viability of mcf-7 breast cancer cells: a new cancer treatment strategy

Background: for many years, the chemotherapeutic agent doxorubicin (dox) has been used to treat various cancers; however, dox initiates several critical adverse effects. many studies have reported that non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma can provide novel, but challenging, treatment strategies for cancer patients. to date, tissues and cells have been treated with plasma-activated medium (pam) as a practical therapy. consequently, due to the harmful adverse effects of dox, we were motivated to elucidate the impact of pam in the presence of dox on mcf-7 cell proliferation. methods: mtt assay, n-acetyl-l-cysteine (nac) assay, and flow cytometry analysis were utilized in this research. results: the results demonstrated that 0.45 μm dox combined with 3-min pam significantly induced apoptosis (p< 0.01) through intracellular ros generation in mcf-7 when compared with 0.45 μm dox alone or 3-min pam alone. in contrast, after treatment with 0.45 μm dox plus 4-min pam, cell necrosis was increased. hence, dox combined with 4-min pam has cytotoxic effects with different mechanisms than 4-min pam alone, in which the number of apoptotic cells increases. conclusions: although further investigations are crucial, low doses of dox plus 3-min pam could be a promising strategy for cancer therapy. the findings from this research may offer advantageous and innovative clinical strategies for cancer therapy using pam.