Indications: brain / brain metastasis cancer

The Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB) is a vital physiological barrier in the central nervous system that regulates the movement of ion and molecule from circulating blood into brain and protects the brain from invading pathogens and toxic agent. However, the BBB is also a challenging for treating brain disease, most of drugs will be hindered by BBB and more than 95% drugs can not reach the therapeutic dose in the brain, therefore BBB is the bottleneck in brain drug development.   

Most brain cancer and brain metastasis cancer represent unmet needs in medicine, once cancer starts in brain or spread to brain,  the treatment options are extremely limited and usually not effectiveness.  

Smaller size MSN (30 nm) with specific surface property is able to penetrate the blood–brain barrier (BBB) and increase enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect on solid tumors. This unique property makes MSN able to expand its application in a variety of cancer therapies such as GBM.  In preclinical proof-of-concept studies of a human glioblastoma cell xenograft mouse model, Doxorubicin loaded MSN (Dox@MSN)significantly enhance the amount of Dox in tumor and inhibit the brain tumor growth meanwhile the MRI image of mouse brain of the Dox@MSN treatment group exhibit nearly undetectable tumor. The better therapeutic activity and less adverse effect of Dox@MSN leads to prolonged overall survival, compared to free Dox.