New Drug-Device Duo Shows Promise in Bladder Cancer Treatment

TAR-200 is a miniature, pretzel-shaped drug-device duo containing a chemotherapy drug, gemcitabine, which is inserted into the bladder through a catheter and releases the drug for three weeks per treatment cycle.

How the drug delivery system works

TAR-200 is a miniature, pretzel-shaped drug-device duo containing a chemotherapy drug, gemcitabine, which is inserted into the bladder through a catheter. Onc inside the bladder, the TAR-200 slowly and consistently releases the gemcitabine into the organ for three weeks per treatment cycle.

traditionally,gemcitabine has been delivered to the bladder as a liquid solution that only stays in the bladder for a few hours,which had limited effect in destroying the cancer,said Daneshmand,who is also a member of the USC Norris Thorough Cancer Center.

“The theory behind this study was that the longer the medicine sits inside the bladder, the more deeply it would penetrate the bladder and the more cancer it would destroy,” he said.”and it truly seems having the chemotherapy released slowly over weeks rather then in just a few hours is a much more effective approach.”

the patient population in the clinical trial

The clinical trial, known as the SunRISe-1, was conducted at 144 locations globally, including at keck Hospital of USC. It included 85 patients with high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer.