Focused Ultrasound Brain Drug Delivery for Malignant Brain Tumor Treatment (II)

Malignant glioma is a common and severe primary brain tumor with a high recurrence rate and a poor prognosis. Treatment efficacy for brain tumor is limited by the infiltrative nature of tumor cells and the blockage of chemotherapeutic agent by the blood brain barrier (BBB). The brain tumor treatment system will be extensively studied from multi-dimensions, including using nanoparticles as drug carrier, transient BBB opening by focused ultrasound and direct injection of therapeutic agents to target area. Such innovative applications of emerging technologies promise to provide more effective means of tumor treatment, with lower therapeutic doses and potentially fewer side effects and may prevent disease relapse and improve the quality of life for glioma patients. Focused ultrasound has been verified to be able to achieve local and temporal BBB opening that may have potential to conduct drug delivery for brain treatment, and has high potential for using this tools to enhance the chemotherapeutic agent delivery locally for brain tumor treatment and improve the treatment outcome. The research team has accomplished the preparation work including the pass of electrical safety test as well as the pass of electromagnetic compatibility test for the medical device, and we have also completed the good laboratory practice (GLP)-standard preclinical for ultrasound exposure toxicology testing. The purpose of this study is to accomplished the GLP-standard preclinical testing on toxicology testing (year 1), which may serve as a strong basis in future application when intending to apply this technology in "first-in-man" clinical trials. Also, we aim to submit clinical trial in Taiwan, and also perform intends to perform the research-based medical device clinical trial under the support this project (year 2/3).

Project ID:PC10405-0045
External Project ID:MOST104-2325-B182-001