Brain surgery takes illuminating step
September 23rd 2011 21:25
AUSTRALIAN cancer experts have unveiled the ultimate surgical homing device: a drug that makes brain tumours glow in the dark, allowing surgeons to cut out more diseased tissue and extend the remission period before cancer returns.
The drug, called 5-aminolevulinic acid, is absorbed more quickly and more completely by tumour cells, which then use enzymes to break it down into other chemicals that give off a glow. By dimming the lights in the operating theatre and using a blue light, surgeons cutting out the tumour can see how much cancerous tissue they have still to excise by looking for areas that fluoresce a bright red or pink.
The drug is used in 27 European and other countries, but is not yet approved in Australia or the US.
Kate Drummond, a neurosurgeon at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, performed the second of the two Australian operations on Friday.
The first was done the previous day at Brisbane's Wesley Hospital.
The Melbourne patient, 53-year-old father of four David Hall, was unaware he had a brain tumour until he suffered a seizure and blacked out while helping his brother with some building work on Monday last week.
Dr Drummond said CT and MRI scans revealed a 2-3cm tumour, probably a malignant glioma, on the right side of his sensory cortex and close to areas controlling movement of his tongue and face.
In his five-hour operation on Friday, Dr Drummond said she had "found a pocket of tumour that I think I would not have identified" had the drug, which costs $3900 per dose, not been illuminating the cancerous cells.
The drug, also known by the trade name Gliolan, is so far only available on a case-by-case basis. A Melbourne pharmaceutical company plans to seek Therapeutic Goods Administration approval for the drug. A study in the Lancet Oncology journal in 2006 found surgeons were able to more completely remove brain tumours from patients who had been given the drug, increasing the period of remission before the cancer returned.
Neuro-oncologist and independent expert Anna Nowak, a professor of medicine at the University of Western Australia, said while the results were "very promising", the 2006 study had found no difference in overall survival times.
"That doesn't mean it's not a useful technology, but one of the issues is that even complete surgical resection doesn't lead to cure of these patients, because there are almost always tumour cells outside of what you can see," Professor Nowak said
| 39 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
