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IMAGE: An ion pump can deliver cytostatics more accurately in the brain, which gives less severe adverse effects in chemotherapy.
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Credit: Thor Balkhed
Despite surgery and subsequent treatment with chemotherapy and radiation, the majority of patients experience recurrence of malignant brain tumours. Researchers at Linköping University, Sweden, and the Medical University of Graz, Austria, have shown in cells in culture that an ion pump can deliver drugs more accurately, which gives less severe adverse effects in chemotherapy. The results have been published in Advanced Materials Technologies.
"This is the first time an ion pump has been tested as a possible method to treat malignant brain tumours. We used cancer cells in the lab, and the results are extremely promising. However, it will probably take five to ten years before we see this new technology used in treatments for brain tumours", says Daniel Simon, associate professor at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics at the Department of Science and Technology at Linköping University .