Medications introduced directly into the brain

Canadian doctors for the first time in history managed to overcome the blood-brain barrier and deliver chemotherapy substances specifically in brain tissue. This tells the newspaper the Motherboard.

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a cellular filter between blood and the Central nervous system, protecting the brain from penetration of viruses, toxins and dangerous for the body immune system. Through the BBB into the brain are extremely nourishing preparations, but in the opposite direction - derived waste products of nerve tissue.

Doctors from the hospital of the Institute Sunnybrook had surgery, during which chemotherapeutic substances pass through the BBB using ultrasound. They introduced the drug intravenously, together with tiny air bubbles, and then forced the bubbles to expand and deflate in the required areas of the brain. So doctors created a very large "holes" in the network of BBB cells is wide enough to medical drugs hit the brain. And the bubbles remain in the circulatory system and lurk in a few minutes, before reaching the lungs. Holes in the BBB regrow in 8 to 12 hours.

If further experiments confirm the effectiveness of the procedure, doctors drastically expanded the possibilities to treat diseases of the brain. While (result BBB) they have to give patients huge doses of the substance, hoping that some of them will reach the brain (and agreeing with the inevitable secondary effects).

According to the author of the latest technology of Hynynen (Hynynen "Kullervo"), about 98 percent of the molecules able to participate in the treatment of brain, is unable to defeat the GEB, for example, antibodies, which remove the plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease or stem cells that are able to help from a heart attack.

Other methods for bypassing the BBB have low impact and risk to health is to first enter the microcatheter through the skull. Researchers also proposed to use magnetic nanoparticles and "Trojan molecule" masking antibodies under proteins.

sections: Society, World News