NEW YORK: Medical researchers have found a way to use scorpion venom to help children with brain cancer.
They’ve created a synthetic version of the venom, but without the actual poison.
They call it BLZ-100, or tumor paint. The substance makes tumors light up and stand out from surrounding tissue during surgery.
The objective is to remove all the cancer cells without removing healthy tissue. But it can be difficult to determine where the tumor ends and healthy tissue begins.
At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Dr. James M. Olson, a pediatric oncologist and researcher, and his colleagues studied volumes of scientific literature.
They evaluated thousands of ways they might be able to light up a tumor. However, the inspiration for their work was a 16-year-old patient.
In 2004, the girl underwent a 12-hour surgery to remove a brain tumor. Later, the surgeons found that some of the tumors had been left behind.
So began their mission to figure out how to illuminate tumors during surgery.
“Scorpion venom crosses the blood-brain barrier to paralyze their prey,” Olson told Healthline. “We focused on scorpion venom because the evidence suggested it would bind to brain tumor cells but not normal cells.”
They tried it first in a human brain tumor they grew in a mouse. The tumor lit up and the rest of the mouse didn’t.
Since then, they’ve completed three human clinical trials involving more than 80 patients, including 20 children with brain cancer, said Olson.
The “tumor paint” can be injected into the patient’s veins on the day before or the morning of surgery. The tumor stays lit for at least several days.
Clinical trials to date haven’t resulted in many side effects, other than mild nausea and headache.
