Brain tumors are difficult to treat because of limited agent penetration into the tumor.
This suggested to us that LCM could be used as a vehicle for anti-cancer drugs. An important additional property of LCM is that they are capable of physically carrying some drugs with them, and , as described in Preliminary Data, are internalized by tumor cells, thus delivering their content inside the cells. LCM thus may provide a new delivery system, for some types of chemotherapeutic agents, that is as efficient as conventional ones but which has less side effects. Taxol is FDA-approved for clinical use in ovarian and breast cancer. Furthermore, the targeting ability of LCM may reduce the side effects of taxol on hematopoietic, lymphatic, and gastrointestinal tissues.