Scientists have come up with a potential new way to treat neuroblastoma, the most common kind of cancer in infants, by targeting it with nanoparticles loaded up with an ingredient of the spice turmeric.

科学家最近研究出了可以治疗成神经细胞瘤(婴幼儿时期多发的一种癌症)的一种潜在新方法，利用携带姜黄的纳米颗粒来消除目标瘤。

Turmeric is more often used to add flavour to curries, but the curcumin chemical it contains has shown promising progress in tests in destroying neuroblastoma tumour cells resistant to other drugs.

姜黄通常被加进咖喱添加风味，但它所含的姜黄色素在消灭对许多药物显示出抗性的成神经细胞瘤细胞的试验中表现出了可喜的成绩。

If scientists can work out how to adapt this into a full and safe treatment, it would have the benefit of being less toxic and unpleasant for patients than traditional alternatives like chemotherapy – which is especially important when you're dealing with young kids.

如果科学家能研究出如何将此应用于全面安全的治疗，那么许多面临传统治疗如化疗风险痛的病人将能享受到副作用更小的治疗方法——当病人是儿童时更显重要。

"High-risk neuroblastoma can be resistant to traditional therapy, and survival can be poor," says lead researcher Tamarah J. Westmoreland, from the University of Central Florida.

“高风险成神经细胞瘤对传统治疗方法会表现出抗性，病人存活几率也很低”，来自中弗罗里达大学的主要研究员，塔玛拉J·西莫兰德说道。

Using curcumin to fight cancer isn't a new idea, but it's difficult to get the chemical into drugs because of its low solubility and poor stability. Nanoparticles could fix that.

利用姜黄色素来抗癌并不是什么新想法，但由于它溶解度和稳定性都很低，因此制成药物十分困难。纳米颗粒倒是可以解决这个难题。

Even better, the nanoparticles were more effective against the type of cells usually most resistant to conventional drugs.

更值得庆幸的是，纳米颗粒在对抗那些对传统药物显示出抗性的细胞尤为有效。

As neuroblastoma is usually very difficult to treat, that's a promising start for these spicy nanoparticles. Not only is it largely resistant to anti-cancer drugs, it's also known to cause health problems after successful treatment, including hearing loss and other disabilities. It also often returns after treatment.

成神经细胞瘤很难治疗，对这些辣味纳米颗粒来说，目前进展初期还是有很大希望的。因为成神经细胞瘤不仅对大多数抗癌药物都有抗性，而且治疗成功后仍旧会造成健康问题，包括听力受损和其它残疾症状，而且可能会复发。

If we can develop an effective nanoparticle approach to fighting neuroblastoma, it would be yet more evidence of the potential of treating disease at the smallest possible scales: nanoparticles have previously been shown to help kickstart the human immune system to help fight cancer, for example.

如果我们能研究出有效的通过纳米颗粒的方法对抗成神经细胞瘤，那么对小范围治疗疾病的可能性也提供了更多证据：比如，之前的一些研究已经显示纳米颗粒能帮助恢复人的免疫系统来对抗癌症。

"We are hopeful that in the future, nanoparticles can be utilised to personalise care to patients and reduce the late effects of therapy," says Westmoreland.

“在未来，我们希望能利用纳米颗粒为病人定制化服务，减少治疗的后遗症。”西莫兰德说道。