United States: Medications which are used to kill the tumor past the blood-brain barrier, which actually protects the brain from the outside intruders is the one of the main challenges in the treatment of the brain cancer ultrasound waves helps the patient to get rid of the tumor.
According to recent studies, the secret to delivering chemotherapy and immunotherapy medications to the brain may lie in the ultrasound waves released by a device that is surgically inserted into the skull of the cancer patient.
A paper published June 6 in the journal Nature Communications describes how physicians at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago were able to deliver a small amount of these medications over the blood-brain barrier thanks to this ultrasonic technique.
Additionally, the researchers noted that the treatment improved the immune system’s ability to identify brain cancer cells.
Using an ultrasound device to deliver drugs and antibodies to glioblastoma to alter the immune system’s ability to identify and combat brain cancer is a novel approach that has not been reported in human history, according to researcher Dr. Adam Sonabend, an associate professor of neurological surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
According to a Northwestern news release, Sonabend continued, “This could be a major advance for the treatment of glioblastoma, which has been a frustratingly difficult cancer to treat, in part due to poor penetration of circulating drugs and antibodies into the brain.”
Four patients with advanced brain cancer participated in the trial. Both times, their cancers returned despite having previously received chemotherapy and participating in an experimental clinical trial.
A tiny amount of the chemotherapy medication doxorubicin, together with antibodies that would improve the immune system’s ability to identify and combat cancer cells, were injected into their brains through these bubbles.
This combination improved the ability to identify cancer cells and revitalized the immune cells responsible for attacking and eliminating malignancies.
“These results encourage us to envision a potential new treatment approach, given the lack of effective immune response against these deadly tumors,” said researcher Catalina Lee-Chang, an assistant professor of neurological surgery at Northwestern University.
In order to assess safety and efficacy, a follow-up clinical trial including the treatment of 10 brain cancer patients first is being planned by researchers. A further 15 patients will then be treated.
Large-scale clinical trials in the past have not demonstrated that immunotherapy can increase a patient’s survival time for brain cancer.
However, if the medications and antibodies are able to access the brain more easily, Sonabend thinks the treatment might work.
Here, Sonabend explained, “we demonstrate in a small cohort of patients that you can use this technology to change the tumor’s microenvironment and improve the delivery of the chemotherapy and antibodies, so the immune system can recognize the tumor.”