Brain cancer research: how we lead

In late 2015, Sunnybrook researchers breached the blood-brain barrier (BBB), effectively delivering medication directly to a patient’s brain tumour for the first time in history.

The blood-brain barrier acts like plastic wrap around the small blood vessels in the brain. This “plastic wrap” allows only select molecules to get through the barrier and to the brain, which is an obstacle when it comes to delivering medication therapies — such as chemotherapy — to treat diseases of the brain.

Using focused ultrasound, researchers were able to break through this barrier, and non-invasively deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to a patient’s tumour for the first time ever.

Learn more about focused ultrasound & breaching the blood-brain barrier »

Coming soon to Sunnybrook, a new radiation system that will kill brain tumours without harming healthy brain tissue — meaning fewer side-effects for patients undergoing treatment.

The system, called the Gamma Knife Icon, focuses hundreds of radiation beams on a single target — a tumour. Individually, each beam is too weak to damage the healthy brain tissue it crosses on the way to the tumour. But at the site where the beams converge, cancerous tissue is destroyed.

This precise treatment spares patients from whole-brain radiation, and in turn spares them from side-effects that could damage memory and cognitive function. 

Learn more about the Gamma Knife Icon »