The Effect Of Oxygen Impurities Of Helium Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jet On The Redox Chemistry Of Cells

Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) play a central role in the immune system and on disease progression and therefore are important in the therapeutic abilities of the atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ). In addition to RONS, the APPJ induces an electric field (IEF) on the biological cells. It can be inferred that it is the combination of IEF and RONS and not just RONS that gives the APPJ its unique therapeutic abilities, such as selectively treating cancer. In the case of helium APPJ it was found that the addition of oxygen impurities allowed for more effective treatment of cancer cells. Putting it all together, the hypothesis is that the addition of oxygen causes higher IEF on cancerous cells causing electroporation and the introduction of RONS in the cells causing apoptosis