The blood-brain barrier can make brain cancer treatment difficult by preventing the drugs from reaching the brain. To overcome this difficulty, researchers have been trying many creative ideas to treat brain cancer directly. In such an effort, a surgically implantable catheter -pump system to deliver drugs directly to cancer-affected areas of the brain has now been developed at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and New York Presbyterian Hospital.
In the clinical trial, the pump was surgically implanted into the abdomen of five patients with recurrent glioblastoma , and a thin catheter was subcutaneously connected to the brain from the pump. Topotecan , a lung cancer drug that was previously found to target dividing cells, was pumped slowly to the cancer-affected areas of the brain for two days, followed by 5 –7 days of washout period. One month of topotecan infusion…
