QUICKIE CURE FOR CANCER IN THE WORKS!

CANCER could be cured in less than a week! That’s the stunning finding of a groundbreaking study by Rice University bioengineers, who say they used implantable “drug factories” — no bigger than a pinhead — to eradicate late-stage ovarian and colorectal cancers in mice in as little as six days!

Clinical trials of the exciting new treatment could start in humans by the fall. And since the scientists used components already known to be safe for people, they hope to reduce the wait for potential FDA approval! The tiny implants deliver a continuous high dose of interleukin-2 — a cytokine, which is a natural compound the immune system uses to recognize and fight disease — to the tumor region.

The drug-producing beads, implanted during a minimally invasive surgery, have a protective shell to stop the immune system from mistakenly attacking them as enemies! “We administer once, but the drug factories keep making the dose every day where it’s needed until the cancer is eliminated,” says researcher Omid Veiseh. “Once we determined the correct dose — how many factories we needed — we were able to eradicate tumors in 100 percent of animals with ovarian cancer and in seven of eight with colorectal cancer.” Interleuken-2 is already an FDA-approved cancer therapy, but the new implant triggers a stronger response than existing treatments, say scientists.

The implanted beads directly expose nearby tumors to high doses of the cancer-fighting compound rather than administering it intravenously and dosing the entire body with large amounts of the drug.

“If you gave the same concentration through an IV pump, it would be extremely toxic,” says researcher Amanda Nash. “With the drug factories, the high concentration is only at the tumor site.

“The concentration we see elsewhere in the body is actually lower than patients have to tolerate with existing IV treatments.”

The new technique may also be able to help patients with cancerous tumors in the pancreas, liver, lungs and other organs, says Nash. Eventually, the team hopes to load the beads with different cytokines to target different types of cancer.