Brain on perfusion
Russia was the first in the world to perform a unique operation on the brain of a primate
Russian doctors under the leadership of the chief freelance oncologist of the Ministry of Health of Russia, Director General of the FSBI "NMIC Radiology" of the Ministry of Health of Russia Andrey Kaprin for the first time in the world performed perfusion with chemotherapy drugs for the treatment of a primate brain tumor, in the future this method can be used to treat people with hard-to-reach tumors of the head and neck.
As scientists told reporters, the operation took place at the Research Institute of Medical Primatology in Sochi on Friday. The method used for the first time is isolated perfusion of the brain on the baboon–hamadryad model. Now the task of scientists is to assess the toxicity and preservation of cognitive functions of the brain. In the future, this method can be used to treat a person, it will help treat patients with hard-to-reach tumors of the head and neck, minimizing the impact of toxic chemotherapy drugs on healthy organs. The principle of exposure is that a chemotherapy drug is injected through the vessels feeding the brain, which enters directly into the tumor.
"Perfusion for this localization with chemotherapy drugs was performed for the first time in the world. An organ was turned off from the circulatory circuit, in this case it is the brain. At the time of the operation, he did not participate in the general system of blood inflow and outflow. To perform this function, an artificial blood circulation device was installed, and a highly toxic chemotherapy drug was injected directly to the organ through the vessels on the neck. In this case, the closed circle of blood circulation gave doctors the opportunity to act directly on the tumor," Academician Kaprin told reporters after the operation.
The perfusion method has been widely used in medicine before – for example, for organ transplantation. For the treatment of hard-to-reach tumors, it is still only undergoing preclinical trials.
"Another task has been applied on devices already known in medicine. We used perfusion to relieve aggression on the organ, and now, on the contrary, the toxic component hits directly at the target, the tumor. Further, when we see that the level of detectable toxicity has dropped in an organ disconnected from the general circulatory system, we understand that we can turn it back on to the natural circulatory system," the oncologist said.
According to him, the main task of the experiment is to understand whether the primate's brain tissue has suffered.
"The brain is a fine structure. And such an experiment is already a huge step forward. You know even from the media that an effective method has not yet been found for the treatment of brain tumors. We hope that we will be the first," Kaprin said.
The Research Institute of Medical Primatology in Sochi was founded in 1928 and is the world's oldest institution of this profile, following his example, all such centers were organized. Now the institute contains more than six thousand primates. According to the director of the Research Institute Sergey Orlov, the institute conducts international–level research - the creation of artificial organs for transplantation, the study of gerontological problems, vaccines against polio and measles were invented and tested here.
"Those studies are carried out on monkeys that cannot be carried out on other animals. When performing brain perfusion only on primates, it is possible to determine how much the drug affects the cognitive functions of the brain. This is due to the fact that the monkey can be trained in certain skills and check the result before and after the experiment. The primate is a laboratory double of a human," Orlov told reporters.
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