Plasma medical innovation using non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma

Summary form only given. Plasma Medicine is a new field to focus on biological and medical applications of non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma. Sterilization, wound healing, blood coagulation, and cancer treatments using non-thermal plasma are remarkable example in Plasma Medicine. Although dramatic effects using non-thermal plasma had been reported, the mechanisms underlying such effects have not been understood. It is needed to clarify mode of actions based on scientific principles for clinical applications. We created a community that consists of plasma scientists, medical doctors, molecular biologists, and so on to focus on plasma medicine in Japan several years ago. Broad tar gets such as blood coagulations, cancer therapy, and transfection of genes have been extensively studied by various teams t hat distribute widely all over Japan. Each team consists of plasma scientists and medical doctors to discover seeds based on scientific principles and apply for pre-clinical studies. We have discovered anti-tumor effects by solutions irradiated with plasma, and we termed such solutions plasma-activated medium or PAM
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. It has been demonstrated that PAM induces apoptosis on glioblastoma, ovarian, gastric, pancreatic, lung cancers, and so on. We expect that PAM would be a powerful tool especially for disseminated cancers. We are studying effectiveness and safety of PAM and molecular mechanisms of anti-tumor effects of PAM.