14 DAY TRIAL // A recent paper in the journal Neurosurgery details the use of two new fluorescent agents to light up potentially life-threatening tumors developing in the brain. The dyes, nicknamed CLR1501 and CLR1502, have so far only been tested on laboratory mice.
Still, scientists with the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in the US believe that they can also light up tumors in the human brain. If this is indeed the case, the dyes could make it easier for surgeons to spot and resect tumors.
How these new fluorescent dyes work
Writing in the journal Neurosurgery, Dr. John S. Kuo and fellow researchers explain that these two new fluorescent agents are designed in such a way that they simply cannot stay away from cancer cells. Simply put, they are attracted to tumors and attach themselves to such formations.
When exposed to specific wavelengths, the dyes begin to glow. What this means is that the abnormal tissue growths that the fluorescent agents are attached to light up as well. This helps set them apart from the healthy tissue around them.
Thus, Dr. John S. Kuo and his team say that, in a series of laboratory experiments carried out on mice, both CLR1501 and CLR1502 did a wonderful job revealing the location and the shape of tumors that had previously been implanted into the rodents' body.
The dyes could forever transform brain surgery
The researchers who took the time to test the effectiveness of these two fluorescent agents when it comes to distinguishing abnormal tissue growths from healthy cells say that, all things considered, there is no reason CLR1501 and CLR1502 could not benefit human patients.
In the report detailing the experiments that they carried out on laboratory mice, the scientists argue that these dyes have high chances to forever transform the field of surgery by making it easier to spot and completely resect tumors without damaging surrounding tissues.
“Used during surgery for brain cancer, these fluorescent dyes could help neurosurgeons to locate the tumor and to resect it as completely as possible. Removing all visible areas of cancer (gross total resection) significantly improves survival after brain cancer surgery,” they argue.
It is understood that, for the time being, Dr. John S. Kuo and fellow researchers are hard at work trying to roll out a clinical trials involving human patients. The goal is to prove that the dyes work just as well in humans as they do in laboratory mice, and thus pave the way for their being used in actual surgeries.