Melanoma skin cancer treatments currently range from surgery to chemotherapy and radiation therapy, but biomedical engineering researchers are developing a new method that uses microneedle patches to deliver cancer immunotherapy treatment directly to the melanoma site.
The development is based out of North Carolina State University in Raleigh and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The researchers working on the patch have gotten away from traditional melanoma treatment methods by using cancer immunotherapy, which helps the body's own immune system fight off cancer.
Immunotherapy research largely uses anti-PD-1 antibodies, which can pose several challenges, according to postdoctoral research scholar Chao Wang. "First, the anti-PD-1 antibodies are usually injected into the bloodstream, so they cannot target the tumor site effectively. Second, the overdose of antibodies can cause side effects such as an autoimmune disorder."
The microneedle patch, however, is designed to release of antibodies directly into the tumor site in a slow and steady manner. In animal studies, 40 percent of the mice who were treated using the microneedle patch survived and had no detectable remaining melanoma. The success rate was even higher (70 percent) in mice that received an immunotherapy drug cocktail from the patch.
The researchers plan to pursue further studies and potential clinical translation for the microneedle patch.
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