Blood-brain barrier breached for first time to treat cancer

The waves repeatedly compress and expand the microbubbles, causing them to vibrate and loosen tight junctions of the cells comprising the BBB.

Once the barrier was opened, the chemotherapy flowed through and deposited into the targeted regions.

"Some of the most exciting and novel therapeutics for the treatment of malignant brain tumours are not able to reach the tumour cells because of the blood brain barrier," said Mainprize, also an Assistant Professor at University of Toronto.

"This technique will open up new opportunities to deliver potentially much more effective treatments to the targeted areas," said Mainprize.

Less than 24 hours after breaching the blood brain barrier, the tumour and some surrounding tissues were surgically removed and sent to pathology to measure differences in the concentration of chemotherapy that deposited in the area treated by the focused ultrasound and the area not treated.

"Breaching this barrier opens up a new frontier in treating brain disorders," said Neal Kassell, chairman of the Focused Ultrasound Foundation, a US-based non-profit organisation.

The success of this research opens up the potential for delivering drug therapies to parts of the brain protected by the blood brain barrier, including researching treatments for patients with various kinds of brain tumours, Alzheimer's disease, and some psychiatric conditions.

The case was the first of up to 10 participants in this study, which is testing for feasibility, safety and preliminary efficacy.

The participants are those already scheduled for traditional neurosurgery to remove parts of their brain tumour.