One of the most vexing problems surrounding dealing with brain ailments is dealing with the blood brain barrier. The good thing about the blood brain barrier is that it protects the brain against harmful diseases and toxins that may be in the blood stream. The bad thing about it is that it prevents doctors from introducing life-saving drugs to the brain to treat everything from cancer tumors to Alzheimer’s. According to a Wednesday story in the New Scientist, that may be about to change.
A research team at a new medical startup called CarThera in Paris, France have managed to temporarily breach the blood brain barrier through use of an implanted ultrasound device and an injection of microbubbles. The ultrasound waves cause the microbubble to vibrate, hence temporarily open the blood brain barrier. A surgeon at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital used the technique to introduce chemotherapy drugs to the brains of four patients with a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer.
The procedure has been done once a month since July. A few months must pass before it can be determined whether the technique has been effective. However, the marker dye that accompanied the chemotherapy drug can cross the blood brain barrier, so hopes are high that the drug has also passed and is doing its work.
If the techniques works, the ramifications for the treatment of a variety of brain ailments are profound. Indeed some evidence exists that just opening the blood brain barrier without drugs has a benefit for treating Alzheimer’s. Researchers theorize that the breach allows antibodies to pass into the brain and attack the growth of plaque that destroys cognitive function in people with the disease.
