Development of a device implanted between the skin and the skull that can kill deadly brain tumors.

Brain cancer is one of the most dangerous forms of the disease, but researchers at Stanford University have developed a wireless device that could help save the lives of many patients with deadly brain tumors.

When implanted between the skin and the skull, the new remotely activated brain implant heats up the gold nanoparticles it contains to kill the cancer from within. This process can be performed within 15 minutes in just 15 days without surgery.

A wireless brain implant can kill tumors in two weeks https://t.co/YYVCHqAgp5

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) October 17, 2022

The innovation, developed by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, raises temperatures by as much as 40 degrees Fahrenheit, which scientists say is enough to kill cancer cells without damaging surrounding brain tissue.

A heat-using technique called photothermal therapy is now being used to treat tumors, but this was only possible during surgery.

The implant was tested on mice with brain tumors, and those treated with this technique had three times the survival time of mice that did not receive the implant.

The team is focusing on glioblastoma, an aggressive type of cancer that requires open skull surgery followed by multiple sessions of chemotherapy.

The team equipped the brain implant with star-shaped gold nanoparticles and a small antenna to convert electrical signals into infrared rays that activate the nanoparticles to generate heat, all of which can be done remotely.

“Nanoparticles help us target the treatment only to the tumor, so the side effects will be relatively less compared to chemotherapy and radiotherapy,” study lead author Dr. Hamid Arami said in a statement.

It can also adjust the light energy and wavelength of the implanted device to target tumors of different sizes and locations in the brain.

“The structure and dosage of the nanoparticles are calibrated to generate the right amount of heat,” the team said in a statement.

The results show that the treated mice lived significantly longer than the untreated mice, with a three-fold increase in median survival, although the researchers caution that the survival advantage is difficult to extrapolate to species of different ages.

And when the new treatment was combined with chemotherapy, the mice lived longer.

“Patients with glioblastoma often do not live more than two to three years after diagnosis because not every part of the tumor can be removed and the tumor can become resistant to drugs or radiation therapy. The goal is to combine this with other treatments. to prolong the period of survival.

The researchers envision that their devices, once adapted to human patients, could be used for home treatment in addition to surgery, chemotherapy or radiation without overloading hospital visits or interrupting a patient’s normal life path.

Source: Daily Mail

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