Implanted Pump Safely Delivered Chemo Straight to the Brain in Patients with Brain Cancer
A significant obstacle to treating brain cancer is not the cancer, but the brain itself.
The blood-brain barrier is an important aspect of the brain’s blood vessels that prevents poisons, viruses, and bacteria in blood from infiltrating the brain — but it inadvertently blocks most therapeutic substances.
Nanoparticles, focused ultrasound, clever chemistry, and other innovative ideas are being tried to overcome the barrier and deliver treatments to the brain. Now, neurosurgeons at Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian are taking a more direct approach: a fully implantable pump that continuously delivers chemo through a tube inserted directly into the brain.
A new study, the first to test the implantable pump system in patients with brain cancer, shows that the novel approach effectively kills brain tumor cells and offers a safe way to treat patients with brain cancer. Results from the study, a phase 1 trial involving five patients with recurrent glioblastoma, were published in the Lancet Oncology.
