Developers: | Houston Methodist Nanomedicine Institute (Houston Methodist Research Institute) |
Date of the premiere of the system: | April 2023 |
Branches: | Pharmaceuticals, Medicine, Healthcare |
2023: Product Announcement
In mid-April 2023, Houston Methodist Nanomedicine Institute researchers found a way to defeat pancreatic cancer by delivering immunotherapy directly to the tumor using a device called NDES to shrink the tumor, which is smaller than a rice grain. The authors hope that their device will make it easier and more effective to treat cancer.
Immunotherapy is one of the most effective ways to treat cancer for April 2023, in which the effect is achieved by stimulating your own immune system. This method has a significant disadvantage if it is applied immediately to the whole body, which causes a lot of side effects.
The journal Advanced Science says scientists Corrin Ying Xuan Chua and her colleagues have developed an implant with a drug that is injected directly into the pancreas to treat adenocarcinoma with drug-eluted nanofluidic seed (NDES). Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is often diagnosed in advanced stages. In fact, about 85% of patients already have metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis, and therefore need very powerful therapy.
The NDES device consists of a stainless steel drug reservoir containing nanochannels, this technology creates a membrane that provides stable diffusion when the drug is released. The researchers place the implant inside the tumor, this provides a gradual release in small doses of CD40 monoclonal agonist antibodies, an anti-tumor immunotherapy agent.
The rice grain-sized metal vessel contains a liquid with anti-CD40 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) considered promising immunotherapeutic agents. In the course of experiments on mice, it turned out that the implant reduces the tumor at a dosage of the active substance four times less than with conventional immunotherapy. In addition, not only the tumor into which the implant was introduced, but also the nearest foci decreased.
Other medical technology companies offer drug-isolated intratumoral implants for cancer therapy, but they are designed for short-term use. The NDES nanofluidic device is designed for long-term controlled and sustained release, thus avoiding repeated systemic treatment that often leads to adverse side effects for patients.[1]