Ultrasound opens the BBB
For the first time, drugs were injected directly into the brain using ultrasound
This is reported by the publication The Motherboard (Chemotherapy Drugs Broke the Blood-Brain Barrier for the First Time).
The blood–brain barrier (BBB) is a cellular filter between the circulatory and central nervous systems that protects the brain from the penetration of microbes, toxins and factors of the immune system that are dangerous for this organ. Through the BBB, only nutrients penetrate into the brain, and in the opposite direction, the waste products of the nervous tissue are excreted.
Doctors from Sunnybrook University Hospital performed an operation during which chemotherapeutic drugs were passed through the BBB using ultrasound. They injected the drug intravenously, along with tiny air bubbles, and then forced the bubbles to expand and deflate in the right areas of the brain. So the doctors created small "holes" in the network of BBB cells – wide enough for the drugs to get into the brain. The bubbles themselves remain in the circulatory system and disappear after a few minutes, reaching the lungs. Gaps in the BBB overgrow after 8-12 hours.
If subsequent experiments confirm the effectiveness of the procedure, doctors will radically expand their ability to treat brain diseases. So far (because of BBB) they have to give patients huge doses of drugs, hoping that some of them will somehow reach the brain (and agreeing with the inevitable side effects).
According to the author of the new technology Kullervo Hynynen, about 98 percent of the molecules capable of participating in the treatment of the brain are unable to overcome BBB – for example, antibodies that remove plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease, or stem cells that can help from stroke.
Other methods of circumventing the BBB are characterized by poor efficiency and danger to health – this is primarily the insertion of a microcatheter through the skull. Scientists have also proposed using magnetic nanoparticles and "Trojan molecules" that mask antibodies as proteins.
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10.11.2015