Better chemotherapy through targeted delivery
Every year, about 100,000 Americans are diagnosed with brain tumors that have spread from elsewhere in the body. These tumors, known as metastases, are usually treated with surgery followed by chemotherapy, but the cancer often returns. A new study from MIT, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Johns Hopkins University suggests that delivering chemotherapy directly into the brain cavity may offer a better way to treat tumors that have metastasized to the brain. Testing their new approach in mice, the researchers found that the chemotherapy drug temozolomide (TMZ) was more effective when delivered via tiny capsules implanted inside the skull. This suggests that a similar approach might be more effective in human patients, says Michael Cima, the David H. Koch Professor of Engineering at MIT and a senior author of the study, which appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Metastatic disease should be sensitive to chemotherapy, but systemic...