Low temperature atmospheric pressure plasma kills leukemia cells

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is one of the most common cancers diagnosed in children¹. Breakthroughs such as tyrosine kinase inhibitors and other targeted treatments have increased overall patient survivability. However, chemotherapeutic agents can lead to acquired molecular resistance resulting in recurrent tumor tissue, severe toxicity in non-tumor tissues, and systemic side-effects. In order to circumvent these negative attributes of cancer treatment regimes, our work studies the effects of low temperature atmospheric pressure plasma on a cell line of human T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells.