Synthesis and characterization of 89Sr-doped hydroxyapatite nanorods as a potential agent for intervention in bone tumors

Reference	Presenter	Authors (Institution)	Abstract
02-018	Michele Rocha Rezende	Rezende, M.R.(Centro de Desenvolvimento da Tecnologia Nuclear); Sousa, E.M.(Centro de Desenvolvimento da Tecnologia Nuclear);	Since the current forms of cancer treatment are relatively inefficient and often aggressive and invasive, the development of new approaches for the treatment of bone tumors is justified. Nanomaterials have been widely researched for biological application due their ability to selectively and spontaneously accumulate in tumor regions. Among the biomaterials class, hydroxyapatite (HA) is an important bioceramic that deserves attention due to its similarity with the bone mineral phase and presents biocompatibility, bioactivity and osteoinductivity. In addition, the HA has a crystalline structure, which allows the substitution of some of its internal ionic components by metallic elements, aiming to confer new characteristics to the material. Strontium (Sr) is a non-essential element that stands out from the biological point of view because it is a biochemical analogue of calcium (Ca) and it also presents the osteoinductivity feature. Thus, Sr is naturally incorporated into the bone matrix by replacing Ca, and it enables an easy incorporation into the crystalline structure of HA. The process of doping HA with Sr provides a therapeutic nanoagent for bone tumors through neutron activation of the HA-Sr nanorods in a nuclear reactor, producing the material HA(89Sr-32P). The 89Sr and 32P are pure beta emitters, which combined allow a more robust and localized cancer treatment. The aim of the present work was to synthesize Sr-doped HA nanorods by co-precipitation method and characterize by XRD with Rietveld refinement, SEM, FTIR, EDS and XRF. The results indicate that Sr can be allocated in HA lattice, forming a stable interaction with no strontium ions releasing from hydroxyapatite matrix, making this material a potential candidate for neutron activation assays and future biological tests.
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