In this experiment, the hypothesis that a treatment would kill residual cells after they had been frozen was tested. The researcher found that as time progresses during treatment, there exists a trend of the cell count approaching zero. If the cell count approaches zero, then the treatment is completely successful; however, the researcher was only able to get to 45 cells/mL which will be further discussed in limitations. The results were statistically significant because the model used to graph the results came back with an R2adj value of 97.81%. This means that there is 97.81% correlation between my results which proves they are statistically significant. The trend will hit zero after about 19 minutes of treatment according to the model (given by 0=0.10616-0.005606m), and there is significant evidence to support the hypothesis that the trend will hit zero after 19 minutes. Furthermore, the data showed that after 0 minutes of treatment, only 10% of the initial cells survived. The remaining 10% of these cells were killed as treatment time went on; after 5 minutes, there was 8% left, after 10 minutes 6% were left, and after 15 minutes, only 2% were left. Assuming that the model will hold true for the time after 15 minutes, then after 19 minutes, 0% of cells will have survived. This implies that after 19 minutes of treatment, a patient who was being treated with this method will be healthy. Overall, there exists significant evidence to accept the hypothesis that this method will kill residual cells entirely.
The applications of this experiment are immense. A better procedure for treating malignant melanoma can possibly revolutionize the field of dermatology. As it stands, the procedure currently used is mohs procedure which involves cutting out chunks of flesh then repeatedly performing biopsies on the chunks of cancerous flesh. This is done to identify the areas afflicted with cancer. This experiment offers a non-invasive cost-efficient alternative to mohs procedure because instead of repeatedly having to do biopsies until all of the cancer is gone, one biopsy can be performed to determine the area that the treatment is applied to. After 19 minutes, the cancerous cells in a patient should be dead. This avoids the repetitive process of cutting flesh off of the patient and repeatedly using expensive equipment to determine whether or not another piece of flesh needs to be cut off of the patient.
This experiment was very limited due mostly to budget. The effect of this treatment on regular somatic cells in unknown because the researcher’s budget only allowed for one cancerous cell line in addition to the other equipment required to complete the experiment. In addition to the issue with budget, the researcher only had enough time to subculture four flasks; one control and three trials worth of cells. This allowed for 4 data points to be gathered, which is less than optimal. Furthermore, the treatment time was only 15 minutes at maximum, and if the researcher had access to one more group, the maximum time would have been 20 minutes, and the trend would have been confirmed. Another limitation to this experiment is that this treatment would only help those whose skin cancer was detected in very early stages, and it would be of no use to metastasized skin cancer because it would only work for cells in the epidermis and the upper dermis. However, considering that melanocytes are in the epidermis, this should be of no problem in the early stages of melanoma.
There existed errors in this experiment, some of which affected the experiment overall. First, while culturing, the researcher dropped one flask of cells and it broke, thus reducing the number of usable flasks from 5 to 4. The spill made by the flask was neutralized with bleach, and it was handled carefully, but the effects from dropping this flask were seen overall. Another error in this experiment was when the researcher was testing which method of freezing would be best. The researcher only allotted 15 minutes for the crucibles to freeze which wasn’t enough time for the crucible in the refrigerator to freeze, so putting cells in the refrigerator may have potentially been the best option, but this is unlikely and impractical because the -86ºC freezer is most similar to the temperature used in dermatology for spot freezing.
There are many ways this experiment could be expanded upon. First of all, the researcher can test hundreds of different frequencies and determine which one works best to get the best results. Second, the researcher could use vertebrae test subjects with melanoma to see the effects of this procedure on a live subject. Another future study that can be done is one where the researcher can test the effects of this same procedure, but on normal epithelial tissue in order to see the harms done on epithelial tissue.