Russian oncologists are the first in the world to successfully conduct an experiment of treating head and neck cancer

According to the press service of the National Medical Research Center of Radiology of the Ministry of Health of Russia, the operation was performed on February 5 on a 15-year-old baboon - hamadryl weighing 30 kg (this type of monkey is a laboratory double of a human) at the Research Institute of Medical Primatology in Sochi - with the support of the Ministry of Health of Russia and Russian Academy of Sciences. More than 30 specialists took part in it, including the chief freelance specialist - oncologist of the Russian Ministry of Health, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences A.D. Kaprin, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences V.A.Porkhanov, Director of the Research Institute of Medical Primatology, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences S.V. Orlov.

According to Caprin, due to the special structure of the brain, tumors in the region of the head and neck of a person are extremely difficult to treat. But now a new way of bringing chemotherapy to the tumor has been discovered - by the perfusion method. “The essence of the method lies in the fact that during medical manipulation, the brain is supplied with blood separately from the body using a heart-lung machine. At this stage, concentrated doses of a chemotherapy agent are delivered to the organ, which are fatal to the tumor, but safe for the organ itself”, - the academician explained.

The operation lasted 1 hour and 40 minutes and ended successfully. Currently, doctors are monitoring the condition of the monkey. At the next stage, it is planned to draw up a study design with the aim of further studying this technique.

Director of the Research Institute of Medical Primatology S.V. Orlov noted that only in primates when perfusion of the brain can be determined to what extent the drug affects the cognitive functions of the organ.