Existing challenges make it difficult for oncologists to ensure “more than moderate success” of cancer immunotherapy. To date, delivery methods do not allow medications to be adjusted “either to lower systemic toxicities or to augment therapeutic response.” Now, researchers are aiming to overcome those hurdles with a miniature optical fiber device.
Developed by a team at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA), the technology — a miniaturized implantable device that employs electrode-embedded optical fibers — offers local delivery of medication as well as measurement of tumor impedance and monitoring of the drug’s efficacy over the course of several weeks. According to the study, published in Nature Communications “the combination of local immune checkpoint blockade [antibody] delivery via this device with photodynamic therapy elicits a sustained anti-tumor immunity in multiple tumor models.”
In their work, the researchers injected tumor cells into mice that had been cured of cancer — this allowed them to test the animals’ immune memory against tumors. The team found no tumor regrowth in any of the cured mice. Measuring tumor electrical signals via the new device is done rapidly and allows real-time monitoring of tumor growth; it also “avoids antibodies causing toxicities before reaching the tumor.”
“We can infuse antibodies through our miniature fiber to the tumor to activate T cells around tumor cells and further elicit anti-tumor immunity by recruiting more T cells to the tumor bed,” says researcher Xiaoting Jia, an assistant professor in Virginia Tech’s Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “This will eventually produce strong and durable anti-tumor immunity as we see the accumulated memory T cells in tumors and lymph nodes.”
