CHICAGO (Reuters) – A new drug patch material studded with tiny specks of diamonds may one day allow cancer patients to get chemotherapy just where they need it, US researchers said last week.

The flexible microfilm, which looks something like plastic wrap, is embedded with tiny bits of diamonds that can release a common chemotherapy drug slowly over time, limiting exposure to the drug's toxic side effects.

"The thin device – a sort of blanket or patch – could be used to treat a localised region where residual cancer cells might remain after a tumour is removed," Dean Ho of Northwestern University, whose research appears in the journal ACS Nano, said in a statement.

The material is made of nanodiamonds, fragments of diamond dust comprised of only a few clusters of carbon atoms. Clusters of nanodiamonds have a high surface area that makes them ideal for carrying drugs.