Blood Brain Barrier Drug - also for Patty H

To all interested parties and also to Patty H who was interested in this:

Re my msg a while ago on this subject, I spoke with my oncologist yesterday who told me of Methotrexate (in HIGH dose) which apparently crosses the blood brain barrier.

He explained that for every 100 molecules of this drug, 1 molecule gets through to the brain. Accordingly this is for very high doses of the drug and it requires an overnight stay in hospital so that when the drug has done what it needs to do, they then give folinic acid (not folic acid) which ensures that the rest of the body does not endure an overdose.

Accordingly it has been done for years and this man worked at the Dana Cancer hospital, Boston where it is used. See link:
http://www.dana-farber.net/

Apparently the treatment is given every 2 weeks, 8 cycles in all.

Possible links when I typed in "Methotrexate Blood Brain" on the Internet were the following:

http://www.springerlink.com/app/home...ts,id:100473,1

This link was also interesting and referred to other drugs that cross the blood brain barrier:

http://www.virtualtrials.com/levin1.cfm?printer=Y

This is another GOOD one and refers to the Boston hospital. Apparently it was developed by Dr. Isaac Djerassi:

http://www.iptmd.com/new_page_9.htm

Hope this helps and good luck.
Elaine

[Rolepaul]

12 years and 4 months ago, Nina (my wife) had an Ommaya reservoir installed. Nina started Intrathecal Herceptin and Topotecan every week at 40 mg/0.4 mg for four times. The dose was moved to 80/0.4 every week for 22 weeks. Then 100mg/0.4 mg every two weeks for 26 weeks, and then the same dose every four weeks until now. Cytarabine replaced the Topotecan 3 years ago, Enhertu became the systemic medication 2.5 years ago. The spinal tumors were gone by May 2012. The brain lesions were tougher to get rid of. Last week, the MRI scan showed the last remaining one had shrunk to barely detectable in size, under 1 cm with lots of holes in the tumor body.
The intrathecal treatment is at MD Anderson and the systemic is at Rocky Mountain Cancer Center in Boulder Colorado. This treatment has been successful in patients with no bone involvement in the brain nor vertebrae.