A device developed by Brigham and Women's Hospital researchers can aid in therapeutic testing for those who have glioma brain or spinal cord tumours. In a phase one clinical trial, the device, which is intended to be utilised during regular surgical procedures, offers unique information into how medications affect glioma tumours without having any negative effects on patients.
The pilot clinical trial results for the device are published in Science Translational Medicine.
Co-principal investigator and co-corresponding author Pierpaolo Peruzzi, MD, PhD, said, "In order to make the greatest impact on how we treat these tumour, we need to be able to understand, early on, which drug works best for any given patient. The problem is that the tools that are currently available to answer this question are just not good enough. So we came up with the idea of making each patient their own lab, by using a device which can directly interrogate the living tumour and give us the information that we need."
To overcome some of the obstacles to precision medicine in gliomas, Peruzzi collaborated closely with co-principal investigator Oliver Jonas, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Radiology at Brigham. Before surgery, these microdevices are removed after being implanted in a patient's tumour.
