Glioma is the most common malignant brain tumor in adults. Its treatment is complicated by the fact that most drugs cannot cross the blood-brain barrier, preventing substances from entering the nervous tissue from the blood. However, a new study by researchers at UVA Health has shown that this barrier can be temporarily opened using focused ultrasound to deliver drugs directly to the tumor, reports infohub.kz.
How does the new method work? The researchers injected microbubbles into the bloodstream and then applied ultrasound to the targeted brain area. Under its action, the microbubbles began to oscillate and briefly opened the blood-brain barrier. Through this temporary window, therapeutic agents could penetrate directly into the tumor without surgery. The main goal of the study was to determine whether this method works in gliomas. Previously, scientists feared that changes in tumor tissue could hinder drug delivery.
To test the effectiveness, the researchers used a new MRI technique that allows precise assessment of how well drugs penetrate the tumor after ultrasound exposure. It turned out that gliomas do not impede drug delivery; in some cases, delivery was even more efficient than in healthy brain tissue. Another finding was that the method's effectiveness depends on the size of the drug molecules. Molecules of medium size passed through the temporarily opened barrier best. Both very small and very large molecules penetrated less effectively.
According to the researchers, in the future this technology could enhance the effectiveness of various brain tumor treatments, including chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and possibly gene therapy. However, so far the results have only been obtained in experiments on laboratory mice. Clinical trials involving humans have not yet been conducted, so it is too early to talk about the technology's application in medical practice.