New Cancer Drug-delivery Technology Takes Center Stage

New Cancer Drug-delivery Technology Takes Center Stage

By Shakir Sayani

One of the major challenges in combating cancer is the limited number of effective treatment options. Classically, chemotherapy has been used as an immediate first choice for therapeutic options. Although chemotherapy can be effective in the treatment of cancer, its systemic method of delivery can often lead to undesirable toxic side effects.

Therefore, at the present moment, more effective drug delivery methods that can present minimal to no side effects are highly sought. Reporting in the February 4th issue of the journal, Science Translational Medicine, a research team led by Jen Jen Yeh and Joseph DeSimone from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has devised a new cancer drug delivery technology known as the iontophoretic technique, which uses an electric field to deliver drugs directly to the tumor site.

To test the effectiveness of their method, the researchers transplanted parts of human tumor tissue derived from pancreatic and breast cancer into laboratory mice. After the initial transplantation, for several weeks, the tumor tissue was allowed to grow in the mice. Then, using their iontophoretic method, the researchers delivered two well-known cancer drugs, cisplatin and gemcitabine. Remarkably, after being placed on the iontophoresis-based therapy, the tumors within the mice began to shrink considerably compared to the alternative intravenous method, which was shown to be much less effective. Although the present study only investigated the application of the iontophoretic technology on potentially shrinking pancreatic and breast cancer tumors, the North Carolina team nevertheless offers insight into the extension of their method into other types of cancers.

The results of this initial study offer the hope of implementing similar drug delivery strategies for human subjects in the near-future.

Image courtesy of pixabay.com

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