Siberian scientists have for the first time in the world healed large mammals – dogs and cats – from malignant tumors in an accelerator neutron source using the boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) technique. This has been reported DEA News”, with reference to the Institute for Nuclear Physics. GI Budker SB RAS (INP SB RAS) is where the studies are done.
According to the institute, these animals were injected with a boron-containing drug and irradiated with an accelerator neutron source, after which the tumors regressed and their general condition improved.
“This is the world’s first in vivo study to use such an accelerator in large mammals, and this is a big step towards human clinical trials,” he said in the statement.
The institute announced that as part of the experiment, 15 cats and dogs with malignant tumors were treated. Shortly before the start of irradiation, they were injected with a drug for targeted tubular delivery, after which they were put into drug-induced slumber and fixed under an accelerator. The irradiation procedure took an average of two hours. At this time, the monitoring control of the main physiological parameters of the animals was carried out.
“The effect of BNCT was achieved not only on cell cultures and laboratory mice, but also on large mammals – cats and dogs, and later possibly rabbits and pigs. In a broad sense, this is an essential step in the introduction of BNCT technologies into medical practice,” he says. The author of the study is Vladimir Kanygin, head of the laboratory of nuclear and innovative medicine at the Faculty of Physics of Novosibirsk State University ( NSU).
According to him, only animals with naturally occurring tumors (and unvaccinated, as in laboratory mice) were tested. Dogs and cats tend to develop similar cancers in the same organs as humans. In addition, biological and therapeutic responses to tumors in pets are more relevant models of human tissue response than those of small rodent bodies.
In Russia, a state program was launched to transfer the accelerator neutron source built at the INP SB RAS to the clinical phase. Specialists of the institute will produce it in 2023-2024 and deliver it to the National Research Center for Medical Oncology, named after the Federal State Budgetary Institution NN. NN Blokhin for preclinical and clinical trials of BNCT”.
Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a technique that aims to selectively destroy malignant tumor cells by accumulating the boron-10 isotope in them and irradiating them further with a stream of neutrons.