Drug delivery system kills brain tumors

GENEVA, Switzerland, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- U.S., Canadian and French scientists have developed a drug delivery system that is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier to kill brain tumor cells.

In four related presentations to the 20th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Geneva, Switzerland, scientists from Canada, the United States and France described how they are investigating a new drug delivery technology that provides a non-invasive and flexible way of transporting different drugs across the blood-brain barrier and into the central nervous system.

The blood-brain barrier is formed by a network of closely sealed endothelial cells in the brain's capillaries. It expresses a high level of proteins that pump foreign molecules away from the brain, while allowing others -- such as glucose and insulin -- that are necessary to the functioning of the brain cells to cross the barrier.

Dr. Jean-Paul Castaigne of Angiochem, Inc., who presented the clinical trials results, said to date, "the safety and tolerability of ANG1005 has been excellent in patients with advanced solid tumors and brain metastases."

The drug resulted in a 27 percent increase in survival of mice with glioblastoma tumors and a shrinking of glioblastoma tumors in rats.