Featured Article Main Category: MRI / PET / Ultrasound Also Included In: Cancer / Oncology Article Date: 08 Aug 2013 - 0:00 PDT

Current ratings for: Brain cancer: groundbreaking MRI-guided gene therapy

Neurosurgeons from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have conducted the first real-time MRI-guided gene therapy for patients with brain cancer, advancing the clinical trial of new cancer drug, Toca 511.

The new treatment, carried out by neurosurgeons at the UCSD School of Medicine and the UCSD Moores Cancer Center, uses real-time magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a way of guiding the delivery of the new gene therapy directly into brain tumors.

MRI navigational technology, called Clearpoint, enables the neurosurgeons to inject Toca 511 (vocimagene amiretrorepvec) directly into a brain tumor.

Clearpoint provides visual confirmation that the correct amount of Toca 511 is injected into the tumor, and it ensures physicians are able to make adjustments to optimize the location of drug delivery.

Clark Chen, chief of stereotactic and radiosurgery and vice chairman of neurosurgery at UCSD Health System, says this new method may be preferable to chemotherapy.

"With chemotherapy," Chen says. "Just about every human cell is exposed to the drug's potential side-effects. By using the direct injection approach, we believe we can limit the presence of the active drug to just the brain tumor and nowhere else in the body." he adds:

See a fuller, exclusive interview given by Clark Chen to Medical News Today.

Toca 511 is a new investigational gene therapy that works as a retrovirus to selectively replicate in cancer cells, such as glioblastomas (brain tumors). Toca 511 creates an enzyme that changes an anti-fungal drug called flucytosine (5-FC), into an anti-cancer drug called 5-fluorouracil (5-FU).

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Brain cancer: groundbreaking MRI-guided gene therapy

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