New 'drug sponge' may reduce chemo's toxic effects

Researchers have developed an innovative, personalized absorber that can "catch" toxic chemotherapy drugs when they "leak out" of a treated organ. This could help reduce the adverse side effects of these cancer treatments.

A team of researchers from institutions across the United States — including the University of California (UC), Berkeley, and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) — has recently developed a tiny device akin to a sponge, which is set to absorb chemotherapy agents after they have reached their target.

The aim of the absorber is to minimize the toxic side effects of chemotherapy drugs, which, although they have a potent effect against cancer tumors, also attack healthy organs and tissue and can impair their function.

The device is 3-D printed, so it can perfectly fit the vein of any individual receiving a chemotherapy treatment. Its absorbent polymer coating is able to "soak up" the toxic agents after they have passed through the organ that the treatment is targeting.

So far, the researchers have tested this new device as an aid to chemotherapy for liver cancer, as the therapeutic drugs travel to the liver in the bloodstream, which can increase the risk of toxic side effects.

The researchers have reported their experiments and findings in a study paper that has appeared today in the journal ACS Central Science.

To insert the innovative absorber, "Surgeons snake a wire into the bloodstream and place the sponge like a stent, and just leave it in for the amount of time you give chemotherapy, perhaps a few hours," explains Prof. Nitash Balsara, from the UC Berkeley.

The researchers tested the absorber in a pig model. They injected a chemotherapy drug for the treatment of liver cancer and found that, on average, the device was able to intercept 64 percent of the drug.

"We are developing this around liver cancer because it is a big public health threat — there are tens of thousands of new cases every year — and we already treat liver cancer using intra-arterial chemotherapy," explains study co-author Prof. Steven Hetts.

However, he adds that "you could use this sort of approach for any tumor or any disease that is confined to an organ, and you want to absorb the drug on the venous side before it can distribute and cause side effects elsewhere in the body."

In the future, the researchers aim to use this technique in the treatment of cancerous kidney tumors and brain tumors.

At the UCSF Mission Bay Hospitals, Prof. Hetts already uses a safer way of delivering chemotherapy drugs. Rather than simply injecting the drugs into the bloodstream, he inserts catheters into the veins to deliver them straight to the tumor site.

This approach already helps lower the risk of these potent drugs infiltrating and affecting healthy tissue. However, Prof. Hetts explains that more than half of the injected drug dose still tends to "leak out" of the targeted organ and reach other parts of the body.

Source: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324140.php

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