The aim of this work is to investigate the effects of different sizes and concentrations of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) on the cell viability in both lymphoma and choroidal melanoma cells.

To this end, GNPs were synthesized following the Fern’s method in three sizes of 20, 40 and 60 nm. Both Melanoma and Lymphoma cells were grown in 6 (24-well) plates so that the first three plates containing Melanoma cells and the last three plates containing Lymphoma cells. In all six plates, the first five wells were coated with five different concentrations of GNPs and the sixth of them was assigned as control. For both Melanoma and Lymphoma cells, one plate was injected by GNPs with the diameter of 20 nm in five different concentrations of 200, 150, 100, 50 and 25µg and two plates were injected by GNPs with the concentrations of 600, 400, 200, 100 and 50 in which the nanoparticles have a diameter of 40 nm in one of them and 60 nm in another. MTT method was used to assay the cell viability after incubating the cells for 48 hours at 37°C.

Compared to the control, in all six plates the results show that both melanoma and lymphoma cells grown were decreased in the present of nanoparticles. However, there was difference on cell grown between Melanoma-GNPs and Lymphoma-GNPs exposures in-vitro. For instance, at the concentration of 200 µg the present GNPs in Lymphoma cells showed strong decrease of cell viability, while, the viability decrease in melanoma cells was not very considerable.

Choose of the size and concentration of GNPs to achieve the best results in ophthalmic brachytherapy are depend on the tumor. Considering the sensitive tissue which the eye is involved in, the dose to normal tissues in comparison with the resultant dose increase in the tumor is of outmost importance in investigation of GNPs effects on ophthalmic brachytherapy dosimetry which require In-Vivo study. Also, further in vivo cytotoxicity tests are required before high-concentration GNPs can be used for choroidal melanoma treatment.