gms | German Medical Science

The specific and complete treatment of carcinomas, without distribution of the respective drug in the remaining and healthy organism can be not sufficiently carried out so far with systemic applications. In the last 20 years different regional and targeted applications were developed, in order to protect healthy cells from increased exposition and to achieve a higher active substance concentration in the tumor. Often the therapeutic and the toxic effect are so closely connected, that even small changes of the drug distribution can be helpful in favor of the targeted organ. To that extent each application, which is able to improve the tumor in relation to non-tumor distribution of such drugs, increases the therapeutic efficiency. Magnetic Drug Targeting is a locoregional chemotherapy. Ferrofluids (=colloidal suspension of magnetic particles), at which cytostatic drugs are reversibly bound, can be given intravasally and enriched under the effect of an external magnetic field in a certain body compartment. Ferrofluids serve as carriers, in order to concentrate the bound chemotherapeutic agent over the blood way in the desired target area, if there is an appropriate magnetic field focused. In tumor bearing rabbits complete, durable and side effect-free tumor remissions could be achieved with only 20% or 50% of the usual systemic chemotherapeutic dosage. Encouraged by these experimental data a transfer of this model to patients with head neck cancer is planned in further research studies.