Cancer in struggle

1988/02/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Osasuna

A Canadian surgeon develops a new method to fight brain cancer. Brain cancers are difficult to treat chemically. One of the reasons is that the body has a barrier that prevents many substances from passing from the blood to the brains. Many drugs will not exceed the blood/brain barrier, or because they are excessively large or not soluble in fat.

The current anticantzerigenous drugs are, on the other hand, highly toxic and do not specifically attack cancer cells. They kill all rapidly growing cells without looking at how they are.

There is a third problem. Instead of reaching the tumor, the drug is distributed in the blood before its action.

The most appropriate treatment would be direct administration of the drug in the tumor. This is the case of Guy Bouvier, neurosurgeon at Notre Dame Hospital in Montreal. Your method does not require major surgery and seems to work perfectly.

Bouvier's technique is not entirely new and has applied the experience of treatment of epilepsy through electrodes to treat cancer through catheters. The catheters are flexible plastic tubes that are used to introduce fluids into the body.

Before starting to work in surgery, perform a three-dimensional map of the tumor using a scanner. Then, by surgery, place the mouths of the catheters 1 cm from the tumor and is ready to introduce the medication. Thus, after 10-14 days, the tubes are usually evacuated and the procedure is finished.

According to Bouvier, catheterization and elimination have no consequences and, in addition, patients do not suffer the usual effects of chemotherapy (skyscrapers and hairdressing).