A promising non-invasive treatment to effectively and safely destroy deadly brain tumors is being tested on human patients for the first time ever at the at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix.

This new treatment has shown to be incredibly effective in treating aggressive brain tumors in animals, said Dr. Shwetal Mehta, a molecular neuro-oncologist and the chief operating officer and deputy director of the center. 

Now, medical researchers are testing it on 30 human patients who have recurrent glioblastoma, the brain cancer that took the life of Arizona Senator John McCain in 2018. 

“If this therapy works, it’s going to be amazing for the brain tumor  community because it doesn’t require surgery, it’s non-invasive treatment and is specific for killing tumor cells so it’s everything that we would want for patients at the center,” Mehta said.  

Instead of a scalpel, surgeons use a keyboard and a mouse. There is little to no risk of infection.

New drug-device combination offers hope for patients

The Ivy Brain Tumor Center is partnering with two companies whose separate therapies proved successful when combined together. The  combination drug-device therapy, called sonodynamic therapy (SDT), is able to target deeper tissues like a brain tumor. 

The drug, aminolevulinic acid (ALA), is taken up selectively by tumor cells and then is activated by ultrasound, effectively targeting only tumor cells for destruction.

“For some reason tumors love this drug and they light up under UV lights,” Mehta said. 

The two companies involved in the collaboration and testing are:

SonALAsense, headquartered in Berkeley, California, the develops and commercializes drug-device systems in photodynamic therapy and new drug therapies for glioblastoma multiforme and other deadly cancers. 

InSightec, headquartered in Haifa, Israel, is a global medical technology whose device performs incisionless surgery using focused ultrasound that is guided by MRI. The ultrasound is able to safely penetrate the blood-brain barrier, which has been one of the most significant challenges in the mission to treat brain cancer.

Therapy could turn lethal cancer into manageable disease

In animal trials, the treatment quickly killed brain tumor cells and at the same time triggered programmed tumor cell death within 48 hours. If the initial testing is shown to be safe and effective, it will be expanded to larger groups of patients. 

“This novel modality has the potential to change the lives of hundreds of thousands of patients and their families, worldwide,” said Dr. Nader Sanai, director and chief scientific officer of the Ivy Brain Tumor Center.

Reaching across the globe to collaborate on rare diseases

The partnership between the center and the two companies illustrates the importance of global relationships in conquering rare diseases, said Dr. Arjun Desai, chief strategic innovation officer at InSightec. 

“Collaboration is key to breaking down the barriers to treatment for diseases such as glioblastoma, where few effective therapeutic options have been brought forward in the past several decades,” Desai said. 

Arizona-Israel relationship benefits both 

The partnership also highlights Arizona’s ties with Israel as partners in trade and innovation. 

In November 2019, the Arizona Commerce Authority opened the Arizona-Israeli Trade Office in Tel Aviv to strengthen its trade partnership with Israel as well as collaborate in areas like biotechnology, water conservation and farming.

“Because of the alignment in a host of industries between Israel and Arizona, it’s a natural fit,” said Glenn Hamer, president and CEO of the Arizona �鶹��ýӳ�� of Commerce & Industry. “Arizona’s reputation as a tech sector leader is growing, and Israel is a global tech leader.

“While Israel’s population is only about nine million, its tech footprint makes it a superpower. Over 300 major technology companies now have some sort of serious R&D presence in Israel, including Intel, the country’s largest private employer.

“Only the United States and China have more companies listed on NASDAQ with 20 percent of all of the venture capital investment in cyber goes to Israeli companies, and the country can go toe-to-toe in virtually all of the hottest emerging sectors, including artificial intelligence, biotech, water, agriculture,  mobility, and, of course, defense.”

About the Ivy Brain Tumor Center  

The nonprofit Ivy Brain Tumor Center conducts state-of-the-art clinical trials for brain tumor treatment. It was established in 2005 with a $50 million grant from the Ben & Catherine Ivy , the largest non-government organization supporter of brain tumor research in the world. The grant is the largest single research grant in the history of brain tumor research. 

To read more about the center and its mission, visit:  

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Diagnosis, surgery, radiation therapy, repeat. This is the typical process for a patient with a brain tumor.

Neurosurgeons must be extremely cautious when removing a tumor mass from a patient’s brain due to the brain’s vitally important role in all mental and physical functions, said Matthew Likens, president and CEO of GT Medical Technologies, a Tempe-based startup with a mission to improve the lives of brain tumor patients.

“If they’re too aggressive, then there’s a high likelihood they can affect very critical areas of the brain that affect memory and movement and speech,” Likens said. “As a result, they know they’re leaving residual tumor cells behind.”

Those residual cells mean the tumor can come back. If the cells are cancerous, the .

Patients often must wait anywhere between two to four weeks for the surgical wound to heal. To prevent the tumor’s recurrence — stop it from growing back — patients undergo an intensive treatment called .

“That is a miserable experience for the patients,” Likens said. “Many of them lose their hair during the daily external beam radiation. They’re shuttled back and forth to a radiation center. Each day they’re reminded that ‘by the way, you have a brain tumor, and we need to take care of it.’”

Enter the founders of GT Medical Technologies: Dr. Peter Nakaji, a neurosurgeon; Dr. Emad Youssef, a radiation oncologist; Dr. David Brachman, a radiation oncologist; Dr. Heyoung McBride, a radiation oncologist; and Theresa Thomas, a certified clinical research coordinator.

“They were desperate for new treatment options for patients with brain tumors — especially those patients with recurrent brain tumors,” Likens said. “In spite of really great surgeons and really careful therapy afterward, tumors recur. And if you’re fortunate enough to survive that recurrence, and you have another procedure, then they recur again.”

The GT Medical Technologies team developed a new way to treat patients: GammaTile. The small “tiles” of collagen are infused with radiation.

After a successful brain tumor resection (removal), the surgeon places these tiles inside the tumor cavity in the patient’s brain, delivering two-and-a-half times stronger radiation than the external beam.

“On average, this takes about five minutes, so it doesn’t extend surgery time significantly,” Likens said. “After the tiling is done, the surgical wound is closed, and within a day or two… the patient is eligible to go home. And that’s it.”

That’s it. No six-week therapy session and quarantine, no three-week waiting period before radiation, no time for the tumors to return.

“The founders commissioned an IRB-approved study at the in downtown Phoenix, and in that study they treated 108 patients across just about every type of brain tumor,” Likens said. “And the safety results reported from that study were very impressive. This mode of radiation is as-safe or safer than today’s current standard of care.”

All of the GT Medical Technologies founders were at BNI at one point, and three — Nakaji, Youssef and Thomas — still are. The company formed at LaunchPoint, a startup incubator in downtown Mesa. As such, it is “an .”

“We’re keeping it here,” Likens said. “Our chief technology officer, Dr. David Brachman, left his role as director of radiation oncology at Barrow just about a year ago, last March, and he joined us full-time to get his invention out into the marketplace as effectively as we can.”

But the company’s plans are not purely local. Right now, GammaTile is in a limited market release, meaning it has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration but does not yet have the funding to be everywhere at once.

GT Medical Technologies recently received its Series A round of funding, which allows for limited commercialization of the product, and the company is several months in.

The first patient treated in a hospital setting received GammaTile at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, and two more were treated at the center on March 27.

Dr. Clark Chen, chairman of neurosurgery, is “seeking to establish a culture of innovation at the University of Minnesota Medical Center in neurosurgery” and took an immediate interest in GammaTile, Likens said.

“Our purpose is simply to improve the lives of patients with brain tumors, and we think GammaTile will accomplish that,” he said.

The founders of GT Medical Technologies hope to replace the current standard of care for patients with brain tumors, which they believe to be insufficient, he said.

The company is still in its beginning stages, but it has big plans. With FDA clearance, the company can move forward commercializing its product in the U.S., and the founders hope to expand the product’s scope soon.

“This is certainly a global opportunity,” Likens said.

In the future, GammaTile may be used in other parts of the body; Likens said the company has already claimed patents for “extra-cranial” tumors outside the brain.

“We just think there are so many advantages to applying the radiation in this way that every patient should have the benefit from it.”

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