Chemotherapy system proves successful in pre-clinical study

The technology has been in development by Philips Electronics and Eindhoven University of Technology for around three years, but it is the first time this particular technique has been demonstrated in a pre-clinical, proof-of-concept study.

Chemotherapy is still part of the treatment regime for around half of all cancer patients. Once administered, the chemotherapy drugs circulate freely in the bloodstream and attack rapidly dividing cells, including cancer cells.

However, they also attack normal healthy dividing cells, such as those in bone marrow and the digestive tract, causing side effects ranging from anaemia (reduced red-blood-cell count) and neutropenia (reduced white-blood-cell count) to bleeding and an increased risk of opportunistic infections.

Chemotherapy is also complicated by the fact that tumours are not homogenous in their blood supply and, as a result, drugs are not taken up evenly, with poorly perfused regions receiving suboptimal doses. This is believed to be one of the reasons why tumours sometimes re-grow after what at first appears to be successful therapy.