Doctors Test Brain Implant That Destroys Tumors

Some of the most deadly and hard to treat cancers have been created by a team of researchers.

They came up with a small, wireless brain implant that can be used to target brain tumors without the need for surgery or radiation.

It's still possible that it sounds too good to be true. The device, as detailed in a paper published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, has only been tested in mice, and likely has a while to go before it's implanted in any humans.

The results thus far are very interesting.

The methodology has been around for a while. In the past, photothermal treatment has been used to target brain cancer. Only open-skull surgery can be used for such treatment at the moment. The light source that the tumor has to be exposed to is far from simple and very dangerous.

This remote-controlled implant has gold particles in it. It took four years for the device to be created.

The gold particles are injected into the tumors through a small hole in the skull. According to the press release, the device emits a light that can penetrate brain tissue and kill cancer cells without hurting the surrounding brain tissue.

The paper's co-lead author, Hamed Arami, PhD, said in a press release that the side effects will be relatively less compared with Chemo and Radiation.

The tech was put into the skulls of mice with brain cancer to test it.

The mice that were treated survived two to three times longer than the mice that weren't. The rodents lived longer when they were combined with the drug.

Although, as the scientists are careful to note, it's difficult to understand what that might mean for humans, as our species have very different life spans.

"Glioblastoma patients don't often live more than two to three years after diagnosis because you can't get rid of every part of the tumors, and the tumors can become drug-resistant or radiation-resistant," Arami said. Combining this with other treatments is the goal.

The device is still in its infancy and has yet to be tested on humans.

Scientists have created a swarm of brain reading nanomaterials.