A Surgical Technique for Safely Placing a Drug Delivery Catheter into the Pons of Primates: Preliminary Results of Carboplatin Infusion

Abstract

The pons of monkeys is safely accessed with a catheter for drug delivery by using a posterior midline approach. Clinical observations, radiographic imaging, and laboratory tests of animals infused with saline for 3 months or 0.26 mg/ml of carboplatin for 1 month were unremarkable. Neurotoxicity was seen with dose levels of 2.6 mg/ml of drug for 1 month. This procedure offers opportunities for examining the toxicity of brainstem antitumor therapy in primates.

Treatment of diffuse intrinsic brainstem gliomas: failed approaches and future strategies

“…Moreover, Lonser et al 71 documented the safety of locally infused Gd-bound albumin via stereotactically implanted cannulas into large areas of the primate midbrain and pons, followed by other reports showing the safety of CED of chemotherapeutic agents, such as gemcitabine and carboplatin, infused into the primate brainstem, although dose-dependent toxicity has been found with carboplatin. 78,104,105 Recently, the cases of 2 patients with intrinsic brainstem lesions have been published, in which they received frameless stereotactic placement of cannulas into the brainstem for CED. 72 One patient with progressive Gaucher disease received glucocerebrosidase with Gd-diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid contrast medium, whereas in the second case, involving a diffuse pontine glioma, interleukin-13 bound to Pseudomonas exotoxin was administered with Gd-diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid at a rate of 0.5-10 μl/minute, with a total volume of 2 and 1.4 ml in the first and second cases, respectively.…”