Technology Helps Cancers

The cells lining the brain's blood vessels are tightly packed together—like a good defensive line, they keep bacteria and other blood-borne intruders from getting through, shielding the brain. But this protective layer, called the blood-brain barrier, also thwarts efforts to deliver drugs like chemotherapy agents to the brain, so scientists have long searched for ways to disrupt it selectively to allow treatments in. A startup company called Perfusion Technology is developing a technique to open this barrier by bathing the brain in ultrasound waves.

Ultrasound has been investigated for a decade as a tool for opening the blood-brain barrier. Most techniques, however, rely on specialized equipment to focus the ultrasound waves to a tiny point. They also require an injection with microbubbles to amplify the effect, and an MRI machine to guide the treatment. Al Kyle, president and CEO of Perfusion Technology, which is based in Andover, Massachusetts, says that the company's method is simpler and cheaper. Rather than opening the blood-brain barrier briefly at a single point, Perfusion uses a specially designed headset to expose the entire brain to low-intensity ultrasound waves for an hour-long treatment session.

The company is developing the treatment specifically for patients with brain tumors. A patient could receive the ultrasound during an outpatient session of intravenous chemotherapy, to open the blood-brain barrier and let the drugs into the brain. Kyle says it would be "a kinder and gentler way of delivering therapeutics to the brain" than current invasive methods, such as an infusion pump or a surgical implant. He also believes that his company's approach would be better than focused methods when it comes to treating tumors that have spread to multiple parts of the brain, because it reaches the entire brain at once.  

Although Perfusion is initially developing the technique to treat primary brain tumors, the majority of brain cancers originate elsewhere and metastasize to the brain; in these cases, the technique might help deliver drugs designed for other kinds of cancer into the brain, Kyle says. He further believes the method could someday help treat other kinds of neurological disorders.