Chemotherapy drug reaches brain tumors using novel ultrasound technology

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2023/05/chemotherapy-drug-reaches-brain-in-humans-for-first-time/

by vanilla-almond • 3 years ago

125 45 3 years ago

news.northwestern.edu

emptysongglass• 3 years ago

When will cancer be eradicated in humans?

dbcooper• 3 years ago

Why not just ask when will immortality be achieved?

ixwt• 3 years ago

After we eradicate it in mice.

m3kw92• 3 years ago

Advances in AI could give us tools to accelerate it big time

akiselev• 3 years ago

Accelerating cancer is the last thing we need.

cramjabsyn• 3 years ago

Project manager says next week

otabdeveloper4• 3 years ago

In two more weeks. :)

In all seriousness, though, is there really such a thing as "the cancer"? Probably not.

gpm2• 3 years ago

Yes? There are lots of variations of cancer, but it seems to be a well defined set of conditions. I don't think I've ever seen an argument over whether something is or is not cancer, or suggestion that such an argument could be made.

Our current methods of treating it treat it in a piecemeal fashion, targeting one variation or another, but I don't think it's unthinkable that you could managed to target and fix the entire set.

gessha• 3 years ago

In 2 months by a group of 10 humble researchers at a conference in Dartmouth.

EGreg• 3 years ago

I also heard about this:

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2023/03/cancer-hemato...

https://www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20230302/Reprogrammed-...

nashashmi• 3 years ago

cancer cells are highly inefficient and have voracious appetite.

tibu• 3 years ago

How much time would it take to make this available for public?

icegreentea2• 3 years ago

They are running a phase 2 trial for this right now (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04528680?term=Sonaben...). It's scheduled to complete in late 2025. Phase 3 will probably be a few years past that, and then probably at least a year or two for approval.

That said, the clinical trial is for the combination of a drug treatment + implantable device. The implantable device itself (Sonocloud 9) has been granted fast track status by the FDA (https://www.fusfoundation.org/posts/cartheras-sonocloud-9-sy...). The fast track status should help speed up how quickly the FDA authorizes the overall treatment once clinical trials are complete.

So... completely pulling a number out of my butt, probably 5-7 years.

msie• 3 years ago

Sigh

stuaxo• 3 years ago

4 minute procedure to get that into your skull, it looks big ?

xattt2• 3 years ago

lead investigator Dr. Adam Sonabend

Nominative determinism strikes again.

srcreigh• 3 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism

“Nominative determinism is the hypothesis that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work that fit their names.”

yieldcrv• 3 years ago

or change their name to be on brand and disassociate from their unremarkable upbringing?

amelius• 3 years ago

I often see this on news items, but at some point I realized that these names could have been semi-jokingly made up by the video editors who simply didn't have a name to put in the clip (or perhaps they used a placeholder name that never got fixed).

ultrasounder• 3 years ago

Yup. Sam Bankman-Fried. His middle name was his chosen avocation.

tyingq• 3 years ago

This was also featured on NPR's "All Things Considered" today, just heard it in the car.

https://www.npr.org/2008/05/13/90411533/study-ultrasound-boo...

remote_phone• 3 years ago

What is the evolutionary reason for the blood brain barrier? It’s absolutely fascinating. No other organ has this, but you would expect through randomness that it would exist outside of the brain.

BaculumMeumEst• 3 years ago

Many potential neurotoxins are circulating in our blood, including those from endogenous sources such as metabolites or proteins, or exogenous ones such as xenobiotics ingested in the diet or otherwise acquired from the environment.

https://fluidsbarrierscns.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186...

I would speculate that other areas of the body haven't developed similar protections because their structures are not as vulnerable to stuff that's floating around in your bloodstream.

John238322• 3 years ago

The eyes have a similar barrier. I think the current belief is that your body wants to make sure that your T-Cells cannot accidentally nuke your brain and eyes. Those don't grow back and are vitally important, so they have to be protected from the "Nuke it from space" approach of the immune system.

jjtheblunt• 3 years ago

No other organ has this

is that known?

CoastalCoder• 3 years ago

What is the evolutionary reason for the blood brain barrier?

I'm honestly not trying to pick a fight, but could you clarify what that question means?

venachescu• 3 years ago

The central nervous system has an extremely delicate chemical environment where routine disturbances like inflammation would induce swelling and destruction of delicate neural pathways. In fact one of the primary roles of the blood-brain barrier is to ensure that any type of “growth” or “organ repair” is extremely retarded - any changes to cells happen very slowly compared to the rest of the body. This is one of the reasons brain damage is so slow to repair, the whole nervous system has a very prescribed way that it grows as a fetus and childhood/youth and then it puts the brakes on everything and only allows very small changes from then on.

londons_explore• 3 years ago

I would like to see safety studies of ultrasound.

It seems we use ultrasound, for example on every baby, and don't have good data to prove that there are no side effects.

Yet research like this shows that there clearly are biological effects of sufficiently powerful ultrasound.

What if societies lack of future Einstein's is down to blasting the brains of all of them with ultrasound pre-birth?

CommitSyn• 3 years ago

It's certainly been considered and looked at. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=ultr...

rpaddock• 3 years ago

I'm guessing that those that hang out on Hacker News don't come across too many issues of Midwifery Today?

This article first appeared in 'Midwifery Today' Issue 80, Winter 2006:

"Questions about Prenatal Ultrasound and the Alarming Increase in Autism"

https://web.archive.org/web/20070129125421/http://midwiferyt...

Chemotherapy drug reaches brain tumors using novel ultrasound technology

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