Researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston have a slow release Anesthesia Drug Delivery System, may revolutionize the treatment of pain during and after the operation, and also a great influence on chronic pain. NIH supported in the work, particularly on the fat particles called liposomes Saxitoxin for packaging, one on drugs, and durable local anesthesia in rats, without toxicity to nerves or visible muscle cells. The research was published online April 13th Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “The idea was for a single injection, the nerve block lasting days, weeks, perhaps months,” says Daniel Kohan, MD, PhD, Department of Critical Care Medicine in the Department of Anesthesia Children’s and Senior Author of the report.
“It would be useful for diseases such as chronic pain, if not used as drugs, the systemic and the risk of dependence, can be simply that the body of the room to sleep, so to speak.” Previous attempts to time the development of anesthetics have not been successful on the trend of conventional anesthetics, toxicity to surrounding tissues. In fact, drugs, packaging showed that the tissue damage. Well, Kohan and colleagues reported that while Saxitoxin is packaged in liposomes, it is able to block nerve transmission of pain, without nerves or muscles affected.
In laboratory experiments, researchers have evaluated different formulations – different types of liposomes with Saxitoxin with or without dexamethasone, a powerful steroid known to increase the impact of anesthetics sealed. Liposomes manufactured nerve blocks lasting two days, if it merely Saxitoxin and seven days, if in combination with dexamethasone.
Experiments cell culture and tissue-analysis confirms that the formulation is not toxic to muscle tissue or nerve cells. Moreover, if the team to examine the expression of four genes known, that in the context of violations of the nerves, they found no up-regulation.
“If the long end, the low toxicity of formulations of local anesthetics is effective in humans, it would have a great influence on the treatment of acute and chronic pain,” said Alison Cole, PhD, of the NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the financing of activities. “Slow-release This technology can also be a wide range of applications in Drug Delivery for the treatment of a variety of diseases.”
Kohan is the optimization of the formulation, for even longer, without the local and systemic toxicity. “It is possible we a formulation suitable for clinical studies too long ago,” he said.
