Japan develops new cancer treatment technology with drug microcapsules directly to brain tumors

Japan Economic News reported that Kawasaki City, Japan's industrial revitalization consortium "nano-medical innovation center" and the University of Tokyo jointly developed a centralized treatment of malignant brain tumor technology. It allows extremely tiny capsules to carry the agent into the cancer cells, allowing the agent to concentrate on the patient. The technique has been proven in mouse experiments. The goal is to begin clinical trials in a few years.The treatment target is the glioblastoma with the highest degree of malignancy in brain tumors. The tumor is not metastasis from other organs, but is produced in the brain. Patients are mostly 40 to 70 years old. It is estimated that there are about 2,000 new confirmed cases in Japan each year. The current treatment method is surgical removal of brain tumors, with anti-cancer drugs and radiation treatment, but the five-year survival rate is only about 10%.
The team wrapped epirubicin, a drug used to treat acute leukemia and stomach cancer, into capsules about 50 nanometers (1 nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter) in diameter. The capsules are difficult to absorb by normal cells and release drugs only in cancer cells, so they can be treated effectively. The team tried both capsule and cancer immunotherapy drugs in mice with glioblastoma. If left untreated, the mice would die within a month, and the survival period was extended by more than 70 days after the treatment.In the past, the drug capsule technology had the problem that the capsule was too large, would be broken down by the liver, and the side effects were great. The capsules developed in this study will not be broken down after shrinking, can effectively reach the cancer cells in the affected area, compared to direct drug use, the amount of capsule drugs to reach the affected area increased by 165 times. (Ministry of Science and
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