An in vitro model of sentinel lymph nodes for assessing the effectiveness of magnetic hyperthermia

Metastasis, the migration of tumor cells, occupies the lymphatic system via populating inside lymph nodes and forming secondary tumors. Hyperthermia is a treatment modality that eradicates cancer cells based on the denaturation of proteins and plasma cell membrane at temperatures above 40 °C. Magnetic nanoparticles have been used to determine nodal cancer stage due to their natural deposition into lymph nodes post-injection. Magnetic hyperthermia involves the application of magnetic nanoparticles under the influence of an alternating magnetic field in order to generate elevated temperatures within a target location. This study aims to investigate the cell killing effect of magnetic hyperthermia in MDA-MB-231 cells in a lymph node in vitro model based on its geometric conditions, promising magnetic nanoparticle concentration, and feasible alternating magnetic field parameters. Evaluation was performed with trypan blue exclusion, annexin-V APC / PI flow cytometry and MTT assays.