Get my medicine! From the printer!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Liver cancer is increasingly treatable, especially with surgery. But cancer cells can remain, growing new tumors.
Souha H. Youssef and team at University of South Australia said, not so fast.
They three-D printed a biodegradable film and loaded on two liver cancer medications. One drug was released over one day, the other over two to three weeks for continuous treatment. The other drug was released over one day. These biofilms were then applied to liver cancer cells.
And?
Within twenty-four hours, over EIGHTY percent of cancer cells were dead! The process continued over twenty-three days.
These films can be stuck on to the surgery site to knock out any remaining cancer cells!
It’s not just a band aid solution! Well, it kinda is.
Reference: Souha H. Youssef, Raja Ganesan, Marzieh Amirmostofian, Sangseo Kim, Ruhi Polara, Franklin Afinjuomo, Yunmei Song, Bradley Chereda, Nimit Singhal, Nirmal Robinson, Sanjay Garg,
Printing a cure: A tailored solution for localized drug delivery in liver cancer treatment, International Journal of Pharmaceutics, Volume 651, 2024, 123790, ISSN 0378-5173,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpharm.2024.123790.