Revolutionary Rice-Sized Device Enhances Brain Tumor Therapy Testing
Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts have developed a groundbreaking device the size of a grain of rice that has the potential to significantly advance therapy testing for brain tumors. This innovative device allows for the simultaneous testing of multiple treatments on the most difficult-to-treat brain tumors, known as gliomas. Gliomas are highly lethal and pose a significant challenge for medical professionals.
The device, which is deployed during standard-of-care surgery, offers invaluable insights into the effects of drugs on glioma tumors. In a phase 1 clinical trial, the device demonstrated no adverse effects on patients, marking a significant breakthrough in brain tumor research. The results of the pilot clinical trial have been published in Science Translational Medicine.
Co-principal investigator and co-corresponding author Dr. Pierpaolo Peruzzi highlighted the importance of understanding which drugs are most effective for individual patients in order to make a substantial impact on treating these tumors. However, current tools are inadequate for this purpose. To overcome this challenge, the researchers devised the concept of creating an individualized laboratory for each patient. The rice-sized device directly interrogates the living tumor, providing crucial information for personalized treatment decisions.
Gliomas affect approximately 20,000 people in the United States annually and are notoriously difficult to treat. One of the challenges in developing targeted therapies for glioma is the limited ability to test numerous drug combinations on tumor cells. Typically, patients can only receive one treatment approach at a time, making it challenging to explore the effectiveness of combination therapies. However, the newly developed microdevices provide a solution.
The microdevices are implanted into the patient’s tumor during surgery, and within a span of 2-3 hours, they administer small doses of up to 20 drugs to precise areas of the brain tumor. The device is removed before completing the surgery, and the surrounding tissue is analyzed in the lab. This method allows researchers to evaluate the impact of drugs on the tumor microenvironment, which comprises the cells surrounding the cancer cells and makes up nearly half of the tumor mass.
The unique aspect of this device lies in its ability to conduct experiments inside the patient’s body, providing a real-time understanding of how tumors respond to treatment. The researchers tested the device on six patients undergoing brain surgery to remove a glioma tumor, and none of the patients experienced any adverse effects. Valuable biological data, such as the changes in tumor response based on drug concentrations and the molecular changes induced by each drug, were obtained.
While the safety and integration of the device into surgical practice have been established, further research is needed to optimize glioma therapy using the data gathered by the device. Currently, the researchers are conducting a two-stage version of the procedure, where patients receive the device through minimally invasive surgery 72 hours before their main surgery.
Dr. Peruzzi expressed optimism about the potential impact of this new approach to personalized medicine. By bringing the laboratory directly to the patient, numerous possibilities emerge, offering vast amounts of previously unattainable information. This development is especially significant for a disease like gliomas that currently has limited treatment options.
The revolutionary rice-sized device offers hope for the future of brain tumor therapy testing. Its ability to conduct multiple studies simultaneously within a patient’s body provides crucial insights into the effectiveness of treatments. With further advancements and research, this innovative technology has the potential to transform the field of personalized medicine and improve outcomes for patients with gliomas.
