Local recurrence is a major cause of death of patients who have undergone resection for pancreatic cancer. To reduce the incidence of local recurrence, a new drug-infusion device, which is fixed on resected tissues immediately after surgery, was devised for trans-tissue, sustained local delivery. The drug-infusion device proposed here has the following functions: tight adhesion of the device on resected tissues, sustained drug infusion to the tissue, drug reloading, and easy removal from the body after use. The fabricated prototype experimental device, described here, was a thin infusion pouch made of a thin elastomer film (segmented polyurethane), which is connected to an elastomeric tube for drug reloading. The suppressive effect of the device delivering the anticancer agent, gemcitabine (GEM), was examined using subcutaneous tumor-bearing athymic mouse. A low-dose, local sustained GEM delivery using the device significantly suppressed the tumor growth and regrowth after surgery. The preliminary model experimental result appears to provide a promising therapeutic procedure for increased survival rate of the patients undergoing surgery for pancreatic cancer.
(c) 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.