Researchers have unveiled a revolutionary microdevice that offers a new approach to treating one of the most challenging forms of brain cancer – gliomas.
The tiny, rice-sized device, designed to conduct multiple experiments simultaneously, was found to cause no adverse effects on patients during a phase 1 clinical trial.
Its developers believe it could potentially transform the treatment of brain cancer.
Gliomas are notorious for resisting traditional treatments.
With approximately 20,000 new cases diagnosed annually in the US, finding effective treatment has been a formidable challenge.
Co-principal investigator and co-corresponding author Dr Pierpaolo Peruzzi explained the critical need for more effective treatment options.
The lack of reliable predictive biomarkers to guide effective therapy is a significant obstacle to advancing treatment for high-grade gliomas, particularly glioblastoma (GBM), one of the few cancers whose prognosis has not improved over the past several decades.
He said: ‘To make the greatest impact on treating these tumours, we need to understand early on which drug works best for any given patient.’
He believes the problem is that tools currently available are insufficient, so came up with the idea of ‘making each patient their own lab using a device that can directly interrogate the living tumour and give us the information’.
The microdevices are implanted into a patient’s tumour during surgery, which takes approximately two to three hours.
During this time, the device administers tiny doses of up to 20 drugs into small areas of the tumour. After the surgery, the device is removed and the surrounding tissue is analysed in the lab.
The approach allows experiments to be conducted while the tumour is still inside the patient’s body and provides unprecedented insights into how drugs affect the tumour micro-environment and the cells surrounding cancer cells that play a crucial role in tumour growth.
The pilot clinical trial for the microdevice involved six patients undergoing glioma tumour removal surgery.
Remarkably, none of the patients experienced adverse effects from the device, and valuable biological data was collected, shedding light on how different drug concentrations and molecular changes affect the tumour cells.
Although the study demonstrated the device’s safety and seamless integration into surgical practice, researchers are still working to determine how the gathered data can be best utilised to optimise glioma therapy.
A two-stage version of the procedure is currently being tested, where patients receive the device through minimally invasive surgery 72 hours before their primary surgery.
Dr Peruzzi said: ‘We’re optimistic this is a new generation approach for personalised medicine. The ability to bring the lab right to the patient unlocks so much potential in terms of the type of information we can gather, which is new and exciting territory for a disease that has very few options at present.’
To read the paper in full, click here.
