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Turkish scientist Canan Dağdeviren's MIT team unveils implant to fight brain tumor recurrence
A team led by Turkish-born MIT associate professor Canan Dağdeviren has developed LUCID, a thin implant that uses ultrasound to spread drugs deeper into brain tissue, with the aim of preventing glioblastoma from returning after surgery. The study appeared in the journal Device.
A research team led by Turkish-born scientist Canan Dağdeviren, an associate professor of media arts and sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has developed an implantable device that uses ultrasound to help drugs spread farther into brain tissue. The study was published Oct. 26 in the journal Device.
The device, called LUCID, short for Long-term Ultrasound-enhanced Convective Injection Device, is designed for patients with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor. Surgeons typically remove the tumor, but it is difficult to eliminate every cancer cell, and the disease often returns. The implant is meant to release drugs over an extended period that could kill remaining tumor cells.
Ultrasound at the needle tip
LUCID is as thin as a sheet of cardstock. A reservoir releases medication through a 3D-printed cannula that sits on an array of miniature ultrasound transducers, which generate waves at the needle tip to push the drug molecules deeper into surrounding tissue. After implantation, doctors can program the ultrasound doses with a wireless controller.
"We have 24 transducers in one ultrasound array," Dağdeviren said, adding that the device "also gives doctors options in terms of the size, the length, and the number of infusions."
"Getting a drug into the brain is only part of the challenge," said Jason Hou, who led the study with MIT graduate student Sarah Ornellas.
Promising, but still early
In tissue models and in a mouse study, the ultrasound helped the released molecules to spread over a wider area. The researchers caution that the device has not yet been tested in humans and that its long-term performance in living tissue still needs to be studied.
Dağdeviren said that, if developed for patients, the drug cannula and ultrasound array would be placed inside the skull, while the battery and other electronics could sit outside it. The work builds on her lab's earlier ultrasound-based brain technologies. Dağdeviren, who joined MIT in 2017, is known for her research on flexible, wearable and implantable medical devices.
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