创新背景

根据美国癌症协会(American cancer Society)的数据，美国每年有超过2.5万人被诊断出恶性脑癌或脊髓肿瘤。侵袭性脑瘤对治疗有耐药性，复发的可能性很高。

对于可手术的脑瘤患者，以前的护理标准是通过手术切除肿瘤，然后进行辅助治疗，包括放疗和化疗。传统的放射治疗多达30次，持续数周。

创新过程

研究人员开发了一种新型、高度靶向和精确定位的放射疗法，它可以在保护脑癌患者健康组织的同时延缓肿瘤再生。

这种被FDA批准的新方法叫做GammaTile，它利用小放射粒子或近距离放射疗法，在手术中植入肿瘤部位，并自然吸收到体内，用于治疗恶性和复发性脑肿瘤，包括胶质瘤、胶质母细胞瘤和脑膜瘤。

每个治疗种子大约有邮票大小，含有嵌入胶原蛋白瓦的辐射源，共同提供精确的、有针对性的辐射剂量。辐射立即开始针对肿瘤最可能复发的区域的肿瘤细胞。

随着时间的推移，辐射传递后，种子被吸收到组织中。在一项评估该治疗方法的临床试验中，对于同一部位复发脑瘤患者，该方法的无瘤月数是之前治疗的近两倍。

创新关键点

“治疗种子”利用小放射粒子或近距离放射疗法，含有嵌入胶原蛋白瓦的辐射源，共同提供精确的、有针对性的辐射剂量。

创新价值

脑癌患者接受的多次放射治疗可能会带来压力和时间消耗，这种新的放射疗法将允许我们为一些复发脑瘤患者提供另一种选择，并且可能会延长某些患者的寿命，提高他们的生活质量。

Innovative "therapeutic seeds" can be developed to target radiation to tumor cells

Researchers have developed a new, highly targeted and precisely targeted radiation therapy that can protect healthy tissue in brain cancer patients while slowing tumor regeneration.

The new FDA-approved approach, called GammaTile, uses small radioactive particles, or brachytherapy, implanted at the tumor site during surgery and naturally absorbed into the body to treat malignant and recurrent brain tumors, including glioma, glioblastoma and meningioma.

Each healing seed is about the size of a postage stamp and contains a source of radiation embedded in collagen tiles, which together provide a precise, targeted dose of radiation. Radiation immediately began targeting tumor cells in the area where the tumor was most likely to return.

Over time, the radiation is transferred and the seeds are absorbed into the tissue. In a clinical trial evaluating the treatment, it yielded nearly twice as many tumor-free months as previous treatments for patients with recurrent brain tumors at the same site.