PTPS-25: NANOPARTICLE DELIVERY FOR THE TREATMENT OF PONTINE GLIOMAS

BACKGROUND: Malignant brain tumors in children younger than age 15 years account for ∼ 20% of brain tumors. Brain tumor therapy is currently limited in terms of the number of drugs and drug delivery systems to which can be applied. Development of delivery systems is disadvantaged by the availability of suitable models for studying such systems in vitro. A major limitation to pediatric brain tumors is the blood brain barrier. Development in the neuro-oncology field has shown some advancement in treating brain tumors using local delivery mechanisms. Unresectable brain tumors, such as pontine gliomas, do not have known effective long-term therapy. By applying convection delivery mechanisms, these unresectable brain tumors may show some response to targeted delivery. OBJECTIVE: To devise a delivery system to directly target pontine gliomas with nanoparticles via convection enhanced delivery. DESIGN/METHOD: Nanoparticles are developed using a standard method to encapsulate chemotherapeutic agents. A mouse model glioma cell line, NP53 and a glioblastoma (GBM) cell line, U-87 are used to determine drug alone versus nanoparticle encapusated drug. Carboplatin is currently the drug being tested using cell titer assays in order to obtain cell viability when treated with the drug-nanoparticle combination. RESULTS: Dose responses are observed when testing the cell lines with drug alone and drug encapsulated nanoparticles. CONCLUSION: Encapsulated chemotherapeutic agents, such as Carboplatin can be used to directly target pontine gliomas. Glioma cell lines and GBM cell lines have shown cell death with administration of nanoparticles.