
“Reaching therapeutic levels of cancer drugs within a tumour, while avoiding side effects for the rest of the body is a challenge for all cancer drugs, including small molecules, antibodies and viruses,” Professor Constantin Coussios, IBME, OxCD3
Device-Enhanced Drug Delivery for the Benefit of Patients
- Aims to demonstrate that targeted mild hyperthermia, induced by focused ultrasound, can enable highly targeted/non-invasive drug delivery.
- Uses ThermoDox® technology that improves doxorubicin efficacy.
- LTSLs (Lysolipid thermally sensitive liposomes) hold doxorubicin but undergo structural changes releasing the chemotherapy agent at 40⁰C.
- Shown in animal models to deliver 25x more doxorubicin than intravenous infusion, 5x more than other liposomal forms.
Results
- After focused ultrasound intramoural biopsy doxorubicin concentrations increased by 3.7x on average
- Treatment modality appears feasible, safe, and can enhance drug delivery
- Demonstrating that non-invasive and inexpensive temperature monitoring using computational planning models enable effective drug delivery, this study has the potential to expand LSTL use
- Potential to deliver patient survival benefit for a range of solid tumours.
- Follow up studies already in the pipeline
Publications
- Focused Ultrasound Hyperthermia for Targeted Drug Release from Thermosensitive Liposomes: Results from a Phase I Trial. Radiology.
- Safety and feasibility of ultrasound-triggered targeted drug delivery of doxorubicin from thermosensitive liposomes in liver tumours (TARDOX): a single-centre, open-label, phase I trial. Lancet Oncology.
- Clinical trial protocol for TARDOX: a phase I study to investigate the feasibility of targeted release of lyso-thermosensitive liposomal doxorubicin (ThermoDox®) using focused ultrasound in patients with liver tumours. J Ther Ultrasound.
“This trial offers strong evidence of the rapidly evolving role of radiology in not only diagnosing disease but also guiding and monitoring therapy.” Prof. Fergus Gleeson
A single-site, open-label, phase I trial
- Targeting primary or secondary liver tumours, unresectable and non-ablatable
- 10 patients enrolled
- Mean age, 60 years
In the Press
