Platinum-based drugs are used in 50% of anticancer chemotherapeutic regimens. There is a clinical requirement to develop innovative methods for the selective delivery of platinum anticancer drugs. Dr Darren Griffith (RCSI) and Prof. John Callan (Ulster University) developed a single microbubble formulation carrying 5-fluorouridine, irinotecan and oxaliplatin to enable FOLFIRINOX treatment of pancreatic and colon cancer using ultrasound targeted microbubble destruction (UTMD). The use of UTMD to more effectively deliver the chemotherapy components of this toxic cocktail to solid tumours not only enhances efficacy of the regimens but also significantly reduces the overall chemotherapy burden, i.e., side effects. UTMD mediated FIRINOX treatment could find a role in both a neo-adjuvant setting to enable tumour debulking in advance of surgery or as a more tolerable treatment to prolong life in patients with metastatic disease.
