Lecture: New Approaches to the Prevention of Lung Tumor Recurrence by Dr. Grinstaff

      Dr. Grinsaff started off his presentation speaking on something in which he had helped put on the market, which I though was very interesting, since it is nice to see how the whole cycle of research data and finally putting all of those long hours of research to real world problems. First it is important to state that lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer deaths in the world. Out of the 200,000 people who get lung cancer each year, 165,000 people die from lung cancer each year. Most people who have lung cancer are diagnosed at a late stage ( 3 or 4). When lung cancer is found early in levels 1A and 2A, a surgical resection is done and the cancer is removed.

    Unfortunately  most of the times the resection is "dirty" which means that the Dr. knows that they have left microscopic cancer cells which will come back and probably even metastasize. Normally these people only have a 5 year survival rate which is very sad because other cancers like breast cancer have a much higher rate of survival. The cause of which was not discussed. The entire lobe of the lung may be removed although the physician would have to determine the cost and benefits scenario with their patients, the cancer does not return but they will lose significant lung function. In a large study, scientists have shown data in which radioactive seeds were inserted into the margin of a patient during surgery which shows promising data, although it is dangerous to the medical providers who are inserting these radioactive particles in the patient after surgical resection and then are closed which surgical staples.

 A part of Mr. Grinstaffs research was to create a better standard of care by reducing exposure that is beneficial to everyone involved. Now one of the injections used for treatment of lung cancer is Pax-tol, which is very ineffective since almost none of the medication goes to the correct site. The problems with most of theses medications are... are they going into the correct site? What is the duration in which the medication is staying in place and what is the dose of the medication?

 There are two ways that were discussed in how to attack this problem, nano particles and film/mesh. Nano particle technology respond to external stimuli( pH, temperature, swelling, shape, hydrophobicity exc) The model in which Dr. Grinstaff concerned pH and swelling. He wanted to know if he could dump the drug locally and cause a change in the pH which would then lead to a more potent drug. The response of internal pH of the cell cause the nano particles to enlarge which gets more medication inside the cancerous cell. Dr. Grinstaff and his research group have created eNP'S with beneficial characteristics using simple emuslion polymerization. His research has shown positive results in recurring growth in mice.( which were used the animal model) 

The second way in which Dr. Grinstaff researchers wanted to attack the problems associated with lung cancer was film and mesh. Films/grafts are inserted into the surgical site and seal the incision as they normal would with surgical staples. The meshes are made from polyglycerol which have the ability to bind with fatty acids/lipids. After completing invivo trials the data showed that the films prevented re-occurrence.

One day Dr. Grinstaff decided he wanted to learn about super-hydrophobicity molecules and how it would or could correlate with the research that he was already doing. He thought that they could use the meshes to make microscopic pockets of air against layers of cells which would be used as a barrier so that drugs could not escape. The data showed positive results indicating that cytotoxicity was prevented.

I work with patients most days at the Cancer Center here in Greensboro, and one of my patients has radiation everyday and chemotherapy every 2 weeks for 3 days each week. When I heard of this seminar, I knew it would be the one that I would make time to hear. It was very interesting to me since I LOVE understanding the mechanisms in which a disease becomes a disease. All in all I thought this was a very worth while presentation and I'm glad I made time to go.