Spray-on gel could help fight cancer after surgery

The gel sprayed on to the wound kills leftover cancer cells after the surgery

breast-cancer-reuters

Cancer recurrence after surgical resection remains a major problem. Now a team of scientists from UCLA have created a biodegradable spray gel that could help the body fight off cancer after surgery and stop it from spreading to other parts of the body.

“This sprayable gel shows promise against one of the greatest obstacles in curing cancer,” said Zhen Gu, a professor of bioengineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and member of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, who led the team. “One of the trademarks of cancers is that it spreads. In fact, around 90 percent of people with cancerous tumors end up dying because of tumor recurrence or metastasis. Being able to develop something that helps lower this risk for this to occur and has low toxicity is especially gratifying,” said Gu.

The study was published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

The researchers tested the spray gel in mice that had advanced melanoma tumors surgically removed.

The study found that the gel with immune-boosting drugs reduced the growth of the tumor cells that remained after surgery, which helped prevent recurrences of the cancer: After receiving the treatment, 50 percent of the mice survived for at least 60 days without their tumors regrowing.

“The spray not only inhibited the recurrence of tumors from the area on the body where it was removed, but it also controlled the development of tumors in other parts of the body”, said Gu, who is also a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.

Now the nano-gel will have to go through further testing before it could be approved for used in humans. But Gu said that the scientists envision the gel being applied to the tumor resection site by surgeons immediately after the tumor is removed during surgery.